


lit in the darkness

by ToEdenandBackAgain



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Friendship, Gen, Historical, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-08 19:08:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 40,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19874608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToEdenandBackAgain/pseuds/ToEdenandBackAgain
Summary: Aziraphale returns to Crowley's flat for the night after Armageddon. After all, it's hardly the first time they've shared sleeping arrangements.Or: Times throughout history Crowley and Aziraphale have shared a bed.





	1. Mesopotamia, 3004BC

**Author's Note:**

> Individual chapter warnings and tags will be posted in the beginning notes of each update.

It had been Gabriel who inferred to him that God was, in his own words, 'tetchy' with the locals. That during this time Aziraphale was to remain on earth with the surviving humans to instill peace in them for their journey. As soon as the rains have started, he feels the call of the impossibly tall mountains, knowing that he is being drawn there to wait out the storm. The humans are too busy in their panic to notice him, but he is careful to remain out of sight as he trudges the fast muddying trails of the cliff, only unfurling his wings when the hammer of rain becomes so thick he can’t see in front of him more than the length of his nose.

The humans are screaming in the distance. Some are trying to flee, grabbing only what they can carrying in their arms as they run for higher ground. It won’t be high enough. They will never make it where he is going. 

Aziraphale finds himself thankful when the roar of the rain swallows the sounds. 

The mountain he has been drawn to is the highest in the area; too high for a human to climb but no concern for an angel. A gaping hole stretches in the rock face, a perfect and dry place to wait out the storm. He expects that the Almighty had planned this for him. 

He didn't, however, expect to find Crawly there. 

"Um... hello?" 

Crawly is twisting several strands of hair together, sending a pool of water to spill across the floor. His robes are soaked through and drag on his frame, exposing the hollow of his chest.

"I feel like the Almighty could have planned this a little better," Crawly drawls as he hitches his robes up and squeezes handfuls of water from the fabric, "couldn't have been a big fire? At least we would be warm." 

"I-well- ... wait a moment. We?" Aziraphale replies, still stunned at the sudden appearance. Crawly had slithered off into the distance when the soft raindrops had turned fatter and heavier, muttering to himself. Aziraphale had naturally assumed that he would be returning to Hell for the duration and had thought nothing of it. After all, they hadn't seen one another since that day on the wall of Eden, where Aziraphale had offered shelter under his wing until the forks of lightning and gusts of wind had become too sheer of force to suggest anything other than taking shelter for the night. Crawly had disappeared without warning that day as well, though he had done so as a snake. 

"Yes. 'We'. This is the only place within a stones throw of anywhere to wait out this thing and I'm not going back Down There for some ridiculous undetermined amount of time. Figured you would have somewhere to stay so I followed you. Don't know why you bothered walking most of the way, I got my wings out as soon as we hit the mountain face."

He nods to Aziraphale’s muddied feet and throws a sodden cloth in his direction with perfect aim. Aziraphale catches it mid air and lets himself settle easily to the ground, wiping the crusting dirt from his feet with gentle swipes while not taking his eyes off the demon. Crawly had used a miracle to start a fire in the cavern, hands held so close to the flames Aziraphale wants to warn him away. Instead, he swipes the rag along the top of his feet.

"Well I'm afraid my side wouldn't much like me being in such close quarters with the enemy. You can't stay here."

Crawly’s eyebrow creeps upwards as it had done earlier that day, eyes unashamedly dragging along Aziraphale’s body while he stretches out on the floor, bringing one foot up to lay out against the flame. "Well what would you like me to do? Not going Down. Certainly can't go Up. I'll end up discorporated if I go out there now. All this space and you don't have room for me, _Angel_?"

The last word practically drips from Crawly's mouth, already curved up into a smirk like he has gotten the upper hand. Aziraphale’s brow knits into a frown. It _was_ in his nature to be kind. And the Almighty seemed only to have taken issue with the humans. And surely, if She hadn’t wanted the demon here the ground would be consecrated, or She would have stopped him from entering at all. 

"Well, I suppose you can stay until the flood waters recede. But let me warn you that if you try anything... demonic..  
I'll not hesitate to smite you. No tempting. No tricks." 

Crawly laughs before he sprawls against the dirt, peering up at Aziraphale through the messy tangle of his bright hair that still dripped onto the ground. His wings unfurled behind him, a sudden flash of lighting throwing a stark shadow of them along the back of the cave. 

"I can assure you, I've only got the mind for sleeping. Can't much say I like this particular creation,” he gestures out at the pouring rain, “Be sure to wake me when it's over." 

He leans back on his own wings and closes his eyes as though Aziraphale isn’t even there, as though he couldn’t smite him right from this cave and send him back to Hell for a new corporation. As though he isn’t _afraid_ of Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale really shouldn't have allowed his curiosity to be piqued, but he hadn’t thought that angels and demons were capable of sleep, let alone would actively seek it out. He had seen the humans do it from the beginning, when Adam and Eve had curled protectively around one another in the Garden and wasted hours of their precious time. It must be good, if the humans did it daily.

“You, ah... you sleep?” he says innocently, as though just trying to make conversation. Crawly ruffles his wings and reaches down to squeeze a fistful of his robes to relieve them of water.

“Mmm, sloth and all that. Especially when it gets cold, it’s the whole serpent thing. Definitely going to sleep this particular thing out- can’t say I enjoy feeling like a wet noodle.”

Aziraphale reaches out before he can think and he immediately regrets it. Crawly’s robes are dry and fluffy, his hair back to the messy spiral of curls with a lone braid. He blinks in surprise.

“What wassss that for?” 

Aziraphale waves a hand absently, “If you’re going to complain the whole time you’re here, it’s going to be distracting. I just thought you could use the assistance. You’re welcome.”

Crawly sneers and flops back on the floor without a thank you. Aziraphale has to remind himself that Crawly is a demon, and demons aren’t likely to thank him. Not that he would do any demons a favour, of course. This is strictly a singular arrangement between the two of them. Aziraphale is kind, and if he keeps Crawly under observation while he is here for the flood, Aziraphale can keep an eye on him. It’s all well within acceptable parameters. 

“You should try it.” Crawly mumbles, his eyes still closed. 

“Hmm?”

“Sleeping. You should try it. Given the whole ‘wiping out mankind’ thing is probably going to take a while, what else do you plan to do up here?” 

Aziraphale hadn’t, as yet, made any plans. He had considered he would pray for some of it. Commune with the Almighty in regards to Her plans. Keep an ear out for Noah and his family, and the animals. Watch over them when he had the chance. Nothing else had really occurred to him. He tells Crawly as much and the demon _snickers_ at him. 

“Suit yourself, Angel.” 

He rolls over and Aziraphale watches with unabashed fascination as one impossible large, black wing swoops low over Crowley’s eyes and covers his face. 

Aziraphale waits three days before he starts to wonder what it would be like to sleep. Crawly has scarcely moved, but there was something so relaxed about his entire being that Aziraphale couldn’t help but be curious. He finds himself almost entranced by the soft rise and fall of Crawly’s chest. When the Almighty had created the humans, she had seen fit to make it so that their bodies would strive to keep them alive by instilling several automatic instincts that required no thought. Aziraphale often caught himself breathing, though he had no real use for it; blinking, though his eyes did not require the relief. It was strange to know that even the Fallen were susceptible to these strange things in their human corporations as well. Would it help him understand the humans better, perhaps, if he slept? It could hardly be considered a sin if he was merely trying to gain more knowledge of the people he was protecting. The floor is hard and cold, even with the crackling fire. He frowns at the sleeping demon, making several emphatic gestures at him as though about to hit him in the face, just to make sure the slumber isn’t a trick. When Crawly doesn’t move, Aziraphale lets his wings bleed into reality, unfolding and stretching them with slow and gentle ease. He rests upon them and pillows his head on his arms to mimic his companion. There is easily four feet between them- a plenty acceptable distance in Aziraphale’s opinion. He thinks of what Crawly had done, and closes his eyes. A laziness begins to bleed into his bones after a long while and he wonders, idly, how he will knows when to wake up. The thought is so fleeting, however, that he can barely grasp it before it sweeps away. 

He falls asleep to the sound of the rains outside the cave, and with the warm of the crackling fire on his face. He doesn’t dream.

He isn't sure what wakes him, but he is filled with the knowledge that he has been asleep for a long time. That the rains have passed and Noah is seeking a sign. He knows he needs to find the dove and give it an olive branch. A symbol. He turns his head and sees Crawly still beside him, arms legs and wings sprawled inelegantly on the ground. What surprises Aziraphale is the large white wing draped over Crawly's chest, keeping him warm. Crawly is nestled so neatly under it that one hand is rested gently on the soft feathers, has them caught between his long and elegant fingers. Aziraphale pulls it back so fast he worries it might disturb the demon, but he doesn't move. 

Without the two of them to keep it alight, the fire had burned to smoulder, to ash, and to coal a long time ago. Rather than waste a miracle that may arouse suspicion he had, at some point in his sleep addled conscious, decided to warm the demon himself. A kindness in their temporary truce. 

Aziraphale slips from the cave in silence. There is no need for goodbyes. Their time together has ended, and their rivalry resumes. Crawly will awaken on his own, Aziraphale is sure of it. The air is still cold, though the rain has eased. 

He makes sure to relight the fire before he goes.


	2. Sodom and Gomorrah, 1845 BC

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley finds Aziraphale in the wreckage of Sodom

Crowley is nowhere near Sodom and Gomorrah when he gets the commendation. It burns in his hands as he reads the number of souls that had been suddenly siphoned into the depths of Hell from the destruction of the two cities and he ignores the rambling prose that promises a promotion and benefits for his hard efforts. He rides to Zoar because he needs to know what happened, because the snatches of whispers he hears tell of fire and brimstone and he knows he didn't do it but surely Aziraphale would never. He can't find the angel in Zoar but he finds a room at an inn that has miraculously come free. He asks questions and hears that there is a spirit in Sodom. A glowing white figure that hasn't moved since that night. He steals a different horse and rides out that afternoon, when the sunset is bleeding red on the horizon and he can taste the ashes that are caught in his throat. 

He finds Aziraphale still in the wreckage of Sodom, his clothes a pristine beacon against the rubble. Crowley can feel his skin prickling and he doesn't have to get close to the angel to know he is praying. The local gossip says he has been here since the end of the fire; some people say they saw the beacon of white amid the raining brimstone, trying in vain to drag some people to safety. 

The people are talking far too much. He is sure Aziraphale can feel his presence but he makes as much noise as possible as he approaches. 

"Aziraphale. You can't do anything now. Get up, people are starting to talk." 

The whispered prayers continue and Crowley begins digging through the wreckage. There are no bodies left, not even the charred remains of bones. Only ashes and coal. It is a long time before Crowley feels the air stop prickling and he knows Aziraphale’s useless prayers have finally stopped. Crowley is ready to coax him back to Zoar when he hears the soft, broken voice behind him. 

"Why would you do this?" 

Crowley bristles at the accusation, whirling on his heel with a forked tongue ready to lash out only for his words to die in his throat. Aziraphale has his head tipped to the sky, tears tracked through soot on his face. His normally bright blue eyes are dull and empty and Crowley is struck by a burst of fear. He has never seen this before. Not in Eden. Not in Mesopotamia. Not in the handful of times they have stumbled into one another in the last few thousand years. Aziraphale looks broken. Aziraphale’s words are loud against the empty air, cutting through it and upwards into the rapidly darkening sky. 

"Why would you _do_ this? They say he was looking for worthy people here and didn't find any but you never gave them the chance to repent. They could have changed. You could have guided them. You left them here to die you _swore you would never do that again!_ " 

Aziraphale's sadness is brimming to anger. He raises his hand to the sky as he stands on legs that tremble under him. 

_The spirit has been there for days,_ the gossipers had said. _Days_ since Aziraphale had moved. Days of prayers that must have gone unanswered. 

“Explain yourself to me! Why were they not worth it! Why were they unworthy! TELL ME!”

Crowley feels the shift in the air and he tastes it in the back of his throat. The barest hint of sulphur. The touch of a whisper of a hint of an angel questioning their faith. He doesn’t panic. He assures himself it isn’t panic that seizes his gut and sends him scrambling to the angel to slap a hand over his mouth. Aziraphale sinks his teeth into the flesh of Crowley’s hand and Crowley is taken more aback than he is in pain, but Aziraphale takes the opportunity and throws him off, still screaming into the endless sky as though it will yell back. Crowley grabs the nearest thing he can reach- a slab of something half melted and warped that still burns hot in his hand- and hits Aziraphale over the head with it. Aziraphale crumples onto the ground and Crowley casts his eyes across the sky, searching for a bolt of lightning or a hail of brimstone. 

Nothing comes, and he allows himself a breath of relief. 

“Sorry, angel,” he says thickly as he heaves Aziraphale off the ground before throwing him over the back of the very disgruntled horse, “Can’t have that happening. Not here.”

The innkeeper is smart enough not to say anything when Crowley saunters past with an unconscious man slumped over his shoulder. It had taken a decent amount of energy to hold it together as he road through Zoar, nobody seeing anything out of the ordinary because he believed they wouldn’t. Demons aren’t much for healing, and Crowley knows with Hell thinking he is the one who secured the souls from Sodom and Gomorrah, that they might be watching him. Healing the injury is out of the question, but it is easy to lean in close to the innkeeper and brush his lips against the shell of her ear, to twist his smile into a smirk that has her averting her eyes and her cheeks flooding with colour. She brings him everything he asks for; the clean cloth and the wooden container of water heated over the fire. She doesn’t ask questions because he doesn’t want her to. 

Crowley uses the moonlight to illuminate the wound as he dabs gently at the blood; removes the soot and grime that had settled into the soft, downy curls at the nape of Aziraphale’s neck. Aziraphale is pale, paler than Crowley has seen him before. His knees are dirtied and Crowley negotiates the swath of cloth from his ankles to his thighs and takes care to remove the mess of what was ash and brimstone and the remains of unworthy human bodies. Crowley lets the clothing fall back into place before he dips the rag back into the water and cups the swell of Aziraphale’s cheek. The angel is almost impossibly soft, from the ringlets on his face to the roundness of his jaw and the soft bow of his lips. 

The serpent inside Crowley stirs. 

_Don’t_

Crowley lets the rag dry on the ledge of the window and waits. 

Aziraphale begins to stir when the moon is almost as high as it will go before it begins to fall. He frowns, a soft keen of pain becoming a mutter of confusion. 

“Crawly?”

Crowley has considered a number of things that would happen when Aziraphale finally came around. Some of them, when the moon had caught Aziraphale’s hair just so and Crowley had bitten his tongue and dragged his eyes away- had been downright indulgent. He didn’t want thanks, nor did he want praise. Would Aziraphale reel with guilt over his words to the Almighty? Would he try and shower Crowley with kindness for his assistance? Crowley already has his excuse for his actions layered on his tongue, only for them to be spat on the floor when Aziraphale’s open palm connects sharply with his face. 

“You _bludgeoned_ me,” 

“I did you a fff-favor,” he hisses, the last word tasting so pathetic in his mouth he tries to bite it off but it’s too late. Aziraphale’s face isn’t warm, nor is it kind. 

“You had no right, I was-”

“You were asking questions, is what you were doing. Haven’t you heard where that gets you? You won’t do well in Hell, angel. Let me promise you that.” 

Aziraphale doesn’t answer. His eyes are sharp and bright and they almost burn when they meet Crowley’s in an unflinching stare. Aziraphale’s anger is still rippling off him in waves and Crowley _knows_ he can’t let him leave. Can’t let him ask the same questions that sent Crowley face first into the Pit. 

“Aren’t you the one who always said it was _ineffable?_ ”

Aziraphale’s jaw twitches but the tense coil of his shoulders smooths ever so slightly. It’s a hollow victory for Crowley, no more so than when Aziraphale heads for the door. 

“No. You can't leave."

The door, which didn’t previously close properly, thuds shut with a force that makes Crowley wince. Too much. Aziraphale’s anger notches up as he turns in one fluid motion, face frozen in an expression so venomous that the snake curled up inside Crowley longs to hiss at the threat.

“I’m not your _prisoner._ What would you like- for me to repay this debt? This thing you have _so kindly_ given me? What will it be that you expect from me in return? You expect me to believe that you did this out of the... _good_ _ness_ of your heart?”

The angel has gotten a better grip on sarcasm since the last time they met, but it doesn’t give the words much less bite. Aziraphale expects an exchange. Expects that Crowley now wants something. That this was a ruse to play on the angel’s nature of good will. 

Crowley gestures to the bed. 

“Sleep it off.”

“Sleep off the murder of innocent lives?” 

_Did it once before_ Crowley thinks, but is smart enough not to vocalize. 

“Yesssss. Wake up in the morning and go have a nice, peaceful word with your Head Office.”

It isn’t temptation. Not really. The lilt of his voice and the cock of his head is all just assistance to the cause. The thin weave of suggestion is habit, nothing more. Aziraphale scoffs and tips his head to the ceiling.

“My Head Office can-”

Crowley crowds into Aziraphale's space, getting as close to the angel as he dares when he knows he could catch a smiting to the chest with Aziraphale in this kind of mood. He can fee the angel’s breath on his cheek, feel the radiating anger burning on his skin but hiding something much deeper. Swirling confusion and stifling doubt. The angel looks lost. Looks scared. Looks as though his entire world has crashed down around his feet and something old and deep inside Crowley, deep in the scaffolding of his creation where the echoes of himself still sometimes linger- _understands._ He leans in and feels Aziraphale’s forehead brush his own, and the words rush out of his mouth as fast as he can say them, hoping Aziraphale will remain too stunned by the proximity to catch it. 

"You will fall asleep, and awaken having had dreams of whatever you like best." 

He catches Aziraphale on the way down and tells himself it was the only way to do it. That the angel was too smart for temptation and too powerful and angry for Crowley to fight. That he added the pleasant dreams to the slumber because it would make Aziraphale more amiable come sunrise. There is only one place to sleep in this room; a tangle of linens and straw stuffed haphazardly into wool and animal furs. But it seems rude to leave Aziraphale on the floor and he’ll be damned again if _he_ sleeps on the floor. It is better he stays with him, he knows that much. The angel can’t be trusted on his own, but Crowley also doesn’t trust him not to wake up and try and smite him for his manipulation. Crowley drops Aziraphale in the furthest corner of the bedding before curling up at the very edge of his own, keeping a distance between them he is sure the angel will appreciate. 

The distance lasts no longer than an hour. 

Aziraphale, despite being nowhere hear as gangly as Crowley, is somehow still all arms and legs when he sleeps. Crowley takes an elbow to the face three times before he wedges the angel between the wall and his body with an angry growl, making sure to trap the flailing limbs tight beneath his own. 

Aziraphale is so warm it makes Crowley’s eyes droop lazily. He radiates something soft and peaceful in his sleep that tickles Crowley’s skin into gooseflesh. 

“You’re going to cause a lot of trouble,” Crowley murmurs before he feels sleep pull him under. 

It is the morning sun pouring in through the gaping hole in the wall that wakes Crowley, and he can see by the twitch of Aziraphale’s eyebrow and the frown curling on his soft lips that he will be stirring soon as well. Crowley knows he can watch from a distance, see what the angel decides to do now that he has calmed down. He creeps out of the inn and into the market, slithering between stalls and hiding amid the people. Aziraphale’s shocking white robes and blond hair come into view not long after him, and he can see those blue eyes scanning the streets for any hint of his whereabouts. Crowley ducks into a deserted alley and pulls his hood to shroud his face. He can no longer feel the ache of the angel reverberating in his head. He can’t _feel_ the doubt pouring off him in waves. Aziraphale might not be fine, but he won’t be Fallen. There’s no need for Crowley to show himself, no real need for idle chit chat. They’ll see one another in a few centuries and Crowley will pretend he doesn’t remember if the angel ever decides to bring it up. It’s better that way, really. Can’t have the angel thinking this was anything more than good business. 

Crowley hides out in Zoar until the sun goes down again, not finding his way back to the tiny room until he is sure the angel has left the village behind. Aziraphale will try and thank him, try and make it something it isn’t. Crowley can’t have him Falling, he has spent too much time building their rapport to have to deal with another angel mucking it all up. 

He pauses when he enters the room, serpentine eyes drawn immediately to the one thing that wasn’t there when he left. 

The apple on the blankets is dark red and glossy, the picture of the apple Eve had plucked from the tree in the Garden. None of the stalls in Zoar could possibly dream of selling an apple of this calibre, and miraculously, nobody else at the inn would even consider opening the door to leave it for him. The apple snaps under his teeth, ripping from the core in a perfect bite that trails juice down his chin. 

It’s better than a thank you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a discrepancy in the dates of Sodom and Gomorrah, so I went with the date as it would work out in the Bible.  
> If you're not up on your Biblical stories, the two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone for their grave sins (these days associated with homosexuality, where the term sodomy comes from). Abraham was told of the plan and, because his nephew, Lot lived there with his family, begged for the cities to be saved if he could find righteous people and God agreed. None were found, so angels were sent to Abraham's family in the cities and they were rescued, but Lot's wife looked back at the city when she had been told not to and was turned into a pillar of salt.


	3. Golgotha 33 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes six hours for the Son of God to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some description of the crucifixion, though nothing more graphic than what was shown in the series.

It takes six hours before the Son of God draws his last breath but it feels so much longer than that. He talks while he dies, continues to spread his forgiveness, even to the men nailed beside him and to the ones who raised him up there. Crowley and Aziraphale don’t talk, but when Jesus lets out an agonized, helpless cry somewhere around the fourth hour, Aziraphale steps slightly closer to Crowley’s side. When the soldiers place a mocking sign above him, when they gamble away his clothing, Crowley sees Aziraphale trying not to tear his eyes away. 

“Stop looking,” he whispers, but Aziraphale keeps staring and lets a single tear drip down onto the rise of his cheek. Crowley grabs for the sleeve of his clothing and hisses again, louder this time. “Sssstop looking, angel. You’re only going to hurt yoursself.” 

“If he has to suffer this way, someone should bear witness to it. Someone who put him up there should- should have to watch.” Aziraphale replies shakily. 

The soldiers spare no mercy when determining that he is truly dead. When the spear pierces into the man’s side, even Crowley has to bite back a hiss. There is no screaming, not even a whimper. The soldiers break the legs of the men on either side of Jesus to move the process along and Aziraphale waits for them to die as well. Crowley’s skin prickles as Aziraphale begins to whispers soft words of prayer and Crowley knows he is trying to make sure the men find peace when they go. Jesus had forgiven one who had asked for it, though the other had said nothing. Aziraphale finishes his prayers and dabs a tear from his cheek. 

“They will both have a place in heaven,” he says softly. Resolutely. And Crowley doesn’t doubt him. 

The crowd begins to disperse and Crowley is already prepared to drink himself into the next morning when he feels the soft touch of a hand on his wrist. They’ve touched plenty of times before, but this feels different somehow. Aziraphale’s soft hand encircles he entirety of Crowley’s wrist, the grip not firm, but not yielding. He still doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. 

“Come back with me,” Crowley offers as though it was his idea in the first place, “If I drink on my own I’ll tempt the locals with silly things, best if I have someone to thwart me and all that.” 

Aziraphale doesn’t spare Crowley a single glance as they trudge the dusty paths back to the village, keeps his eyes on his feet and his hands clasped silently in front of him. Crowley doesn’t try and make conversation until they reach his current residence. He has been staying in the small, wooden home for weeks now. When Hell had found out the Son of God was a grown man performing miracles in Jerusalem, they'd been in fits. Crowley, of course, has known about Jesus since the night Gabriel had appeared to his mother and told her of the blessing. He'd felt the world shift under his feet as an archangel came down from Heaven and his first, terrified thought was that Aziraphale was in danger. By the time he had finally found him, safe and sound in Nazareth many months later, he had enough sense to know Heaven had been up to something. Aziraphale shared the news over a meal of bread and fish that Crowley didn’t eat. The son of God was to be born to Mary and Joseph, and then he would lead the people into the Light. Aziraphale admitted he felt he was being left out of some of the more specific details of the whole thing, but overall had been pleased. Crowley had asked, lips pursed and yellow eyes glowing in the dark night shrouding them, why Aziraphale would share such important heavenly plans with a demon. Aziraphale had shrugged and smiled, his eyes focused in the distance where Crowley could hear the soft cries of a woman bringing life into the world. 

'You can if you'd like. I owe you a favour... from before.'

Crowley had pretend not to know what he meant, but kept the birth of Christ to himself until Hell figured it out on their own. He'd met the man in the desert, with the orders to tempt him to evil burning hot in his hands. Jesus had stared at the kingdoms of the world with wide eyed curiosity, and maybe if he had tried enough -or at all, really- Crowley might have succeeded in tempting him. But Hell would have their own son of the Lord one day, and He would bring on Armageddon. Seemed only right to let the other side spread a little happiness. 

His home, not that he calls it that, is only big enough for him and he likes it that way. There is a jug of wine beside the pile of blankets he sleeps in, and he gestures for Aziraphale to sit. Their knees knock when Crowley sinks down besides him and takes a deep drink from the jug before offering it to his companion. 

"Do you like wine? Though even if you don't, I'd say drink it anyway. It'll make you feel better." 

"I can't say I've ever indulged, actually." Aziraphale admits softly, one finger tracing the outside of the wooden jug. It occurs to Crowley that the angel might not feel comfortable placing his lips against the neck of the jug, where Crowley’s own mouth had wrapped around it. He waves his hand and someone in the neighbouring home loses a heavy clay cup from their storage.

"Four thousand years and you didn't consider it?" Crowley prods, sloshing a generous portion into the pilfered cup for Aziraphale. The humans have been finding ways to get drunk since Adam and Eve had left Eden, and they were getting better at it every century. 

"Seemed perhaps too indulgent. I've seen the humans when they partake, of course. They get quite..uninhibited." 

Crowley smiles and gives the cup a push with the tip of one long finger, "Wouldn't worry. Did you not hear the stories, angel? That young man of yours was miracling water into it. Can hardly be a sin if the son of the Almighty was creating it for the masses, can it?" 

He doesn't tell Aziraphale that the stuff Jesus had been creating was not only not as good, but far less potent. That pulling anything from raw firmament never really tastes the same and is never quite as good as it should be. That this stuff is far more intense than anything Jesus would have offered to his followers. The angel needs some kind of comfort and Crowley needs to not be sober so it's two birds with one stone and he genuinely thinks Aziraphale will take to it. He's proven right when, after the first tentative sip, Aziraphale's eyes fall closed and he sighs ever so softly. 

"Its lovely." 

Crowley raises the jug into the air and brings it to his lips. He’s prepared to drink until he stops having to think about everything. He smiles to himself when Aziraphale drains the cup and smacks his lips. 

They drink until night falls. And then they keep drinking. Sometimes they talk, but mostly they don’t. Aziraphale will sometimes open his mouth as though to speak, but always closes it. Crowley muses aloud, though never addresses Aziraphae directly. It isn’t until Crowley is groping for what might be the fifth or eighth jug of wine he has stashed in his room that Aziraphale finally summons his courage and speaks. 

“Crawly-Crowley,” Aziraphale begins, and Crowley’s lips tilt ever so slightly at the quick correction, “May I- May I ask...”

Crowley knows. He knows what Aziraphale wants to ask and he prepares to say no. Prepares to shove him away and hiss a threat and spend the rest of the night in a tense silence because he won’t kick the angel out but he won’t answer. He doesn’t have to, however, because Aziraphale shakes his head and brings the cup to his lips. 

“No. No, nevermind. I shouldn’t ask. It’s not my business.” 

The silence settles into the cracks of the room like dust and Crowley feels... something. He brings the jug to his lips and drinks deep and long until his mouth is stained dark red and slick. 

“I asked questions,” he says softly, fixing his eyes on a spot in the corner and not drawing them away, “I hung around the wrong people and they encouraged questions. The Almighty didn’t encourage questions. Especially not the kind I was asking. I didn’t know... I didn’t know She would cast us out. But maybe it’s a good thing she did, I’m not really a big fan of ineffability.” 

He thinks of Lucifer and his bright, shining beauty. How he had praised Crowley for his curiosity, encouraged every question he had felt brimming in his mouth. The way he had looked when he had come to Crowley and reached out a strong, welcoming hand. ‘Trust in me’ he had said. 

And then Crowley had been burning. 

Aziraphale hums thoughtfully, “You didn’t need to tell me that.” 

“I know. But now you know, so you won’t ask again.” 

They drink. The night gets darker, the stars splash across the sky and the moon isn’t visible tonight. How fitting for events of the day. Aziraphale’s eyes grow unfocused and his limbs finally sink into something Crowley thinks look relaxed. He could send him away now, he knows. But Aziraphale is watching him, head pressed to the wall and turned to stare only at Crowley. 

“What did you ask that was so bad?” Aziraphale asks, so sincere and innocent and drunk that Crowley feels a little bad for not teaching him how to sober up before letting him get so far gone. But then he remembers that he’s a demon and he promptly drowns the guilt with more wine. 

He could answer. It’s hardly as though the angel will remember much, his corporation is so inebriated that if it was a regular human they’d likely be dead. Crowley twists his mouth and grunts. There had been so many questions he had asked, who was to say which one had pissed Her off so much? He’d asked why an awful lot. Why this, and why that. Why can’t we know more, why are the rules the way they are, why is everything so damn secretive isn’t this supposed to be Paradise? He’d read the memos about the chattering apes and their intended creation, it had been planned for a long time before he even found himself teetering on the edge. He’d heard She was going to test them. He’d asked why there would be tests. Why they had to believe when they wouldn’t be allowed to know. Why they would need to be good without knowing why they should be. He thinks of the flood. Of Sodom. Of Jesus and his bright smile and his craving for kindness and his lifeless body strung up on the cross. 

“Asked why they needed to suffer.” he says softly, finally letting himself turn and face the angel. Aziraphale’s face crumples and Crowley has to look away because he can’t stand it. Aziraphale reaches for more wine and Crowley catches his hand.

“If you drink any more of that, you’re going to end up unconscious.” he warns, gesturing to the blankets under them, “And I’m not sleeping on the floor.” 

Aziraphale looks down, then back up at Crowley. He falls ungracefully into the heap and sighs, burying his cheeks against the rough scratch of fabric. 

“Hardly the first time we’ve slept near one another, dear.” 

Dear 

The endearment makes Crowley’s skin prickle but he doesn’t get a chance to throw it off before he realises that Aziraphale’s corporation has finally succumbed to the excess of alcohol and is fast asleep. Crowley shakes his head and sobers himself up, tongue sweeping through his mouth to rid the feeling of fuzz and grime left behind by the sudden miracle. Aziraphale is going to have an incredibly unpleasant morning. It takes several tries to negotiate the blankets out from underneath where Aziraphale had fallen, eventually resulting in Crowley giving them a single, hard yank and letting Aziraphale be rolled into the wall. 

He doesn’t stir. 

Crowley gives the corporation a gentle poke to see if it’s still breathing. Aziraphale has always said it’s too much effort to try and suppress the automatic body things so it’s a good way to make sure he hasn’t been discorporated. Crowley picks his favourite blanket of the five and throws his second favourite over Aziraphale before curling up beside him, keeping a few feet of distance when he remembers the annoyingly pointy elbows that had come in contact with his face the last time they had done this. He doesn’t fall asleep for a long time, the image of the son of God strung up on the cross burned into the back of his eyelids. 

It isn’t the first time they have fallen asleep together, but it’s the first time they’ve awoken together. Crowley is rudely awoken by a soft, horrified groan of pain and he can’t help but smirk into his blankets and pretend to remain asleep. Aziraphale shifts once. Then again. 

“Oh dear... I might discorporate.” he whines and Crowley chuckles. 

“You’ll be fine.” 

He stretches in the tangle of blankets he has managed to wrap around his legs, arms high above his head and back arched in a way that only a snake turned human corporation could manage. Aziraphale shoots him a look that has no malice when plastered on the face of a man in the throes of agony and regret. Crowley stands in the sunshine of the new day and lets Aziraphale grumble and whine behind him for a while before he sighs and snaps his fingers. Aziraphale’s cry of relief is cut off by a strangled noise of annoyance. 

“Are you saying you could’ve done that this whole time?” Aziraphale hisses. Crowley smiles.

“Once you forget to miracle yourself sober, you never forget again. Just wanted that feeling to make an impression. And I’m a demon, after all.”

They don’t talk much, after. Aziraphale starts and stops what Crowley is sure is an attempt at a thank you before he finally gives up when Crowley shoots him a sharp stare. He leaves, but not without saying a stilted goodbye. 

Three days later, the Son of God rises from the dead. He had died for the sins of man and suffered for their forgiveness. The Almighty believes in forgiveness now, apparently. Aziraphale must not have known this part of the plan because Crowley sees him for the briefest second of he looks enraged like Crowley has never seen. 

Crowley gets drunk again. 

This time he is alone.


	4. Rome 410 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the sack of Rome, Aziraphale needs Crowley to know this isn't his fault.

Aziraphale knows he will find Crowley in Rome. When the demon isn’t nipping around the globe for temptations or showing up randomly at Aziraphale’s elbow to bother him with something, he’s _always_ in Rome. He loves the decadence of it, the way you can almost feel the sin in the air as you walk the streets. Or so he had said, that day many years ago when the two of them had shared oysters across a heavy wooden table. Crowley hadn’t been taken by them, but it didn’t stop him from staying until Aziraphale’s plate was clean. Their conversation had turned to business, Crowley subtly suggesting that the current political situation in Rome was about to take a turn for the worse. 

Of course Crowley was there to tempt Caligula into doing something _stupid._ Not that the man seemingly needed any influence, in Aziraphale’s opinion. 

Aziraphale had swallowed an oyster and dabbed the corner of his mouth, not making eye contact as he suggested, ever so subtly, that Crowley not make too much of an effort with the man lest his time be tragically wasted. Crowley’s eyebrows had climbed and Aziraphale had pretended not to notice. Heaven could hardly allow a man such as Caligula to have control over Rome, now could they? Aziraphale wasn’t a fan of murder, but it seemed to be the way the humans liked to dispose of their unpleasant kind. They had parted ways that evening, Crowley looking much happier than he had when Aziraphale stumbled upon him in the tavern that morning. 

Caligula had been murdered in the streets a fortnight later. 

But that had been centuries ago. 

Aziraphale doesn’t _need_ to find Crowley. There’s no real business to be had here, but he can’t help but feel as though he should. He had seen Crowley the night Rome had begun to burn, and would burn for close to a week. Aziraphale had never told him that he felt responsible for it, it had been his job to influence Nero and all that and he’d hardly known the man would raze the city to the ground. But still, Rome had rebuilt and Crowley had worked his way back amongst the people, mentioning it the few times they had crossed paths since the great fire. 

And now Rome was falling again. 

Aziraphale had nothing to do with it, nor did his side of things. But the Visigoths were religious men and they showed it, and the thought of Crowley assuming Aziraphale had done this without warning him made him feel... worried. They’re hereditary enemies, of course, but that hardly meant they couldn’t give one another a courtesy warning before doing something like this. If Crowley was going to be doing some kind of demonic work in Aziraphale’s general area, he would appreciate some notice. 

The streets are packed with people trying to flee the city, trampling atop one another without a care. People are screaming. The scent of blood has left a tang in the air amid the smell of burning. He knows the Visigoths are letting the devout to the Almighty seek sanctuary in the churches and they are treating holy objects with reverence and yet it makes his stomach lurch. This isn’t how things are supposed to happen. 

He has been looking for Crowley since the morning, from the moment he had heard the rebelling slaves had opened the gates to the oncoming army. Crowley is leaning against a burning tavern as though the city isn’t descending into chaos around him. His glasses have changed since the last time Aziraphale had seen him, his hair is longer but still cropped into the style of the times. But the slope of his shoulders and the impossible twist of his hips is unmistakable. 

“Crowley!”

Crowley’s head turns and his mouth picks up into a snarl.

“What.”

Aziraphale finally breaks through the crowd and comes to a stop in front of Crowley, too hot in the late summer sun with the flames and the crushing crowds. Crowley looks unaffected. He stands in front of Aziraphale expectantly, mouth still curled and his glasses pressed so firmly to his face that Aziraphale can’t even guess as to how he is feeling. 

“Crowley- I need you to know-” 

Aziraphale hears an ominous creak above them before the sharp explosion echoed through the air. The wood beams of the tavern burst outwards and began to tumble, and he doesn’t think before he has Crowley’s hand in his own and their bodies are flung out of Rome in a burst of miracle light. Its not how they’re supposed to do things and he’s sure he’s going to get a reprimand for it later, but he’ll say he was saving an old woman or a priest or a virgin and they’ll look the other way. They land on the grass somewhere outside Rome, far enough way to be out of danger but still close enough to see the smoke. Aziraphale catches the barest glimpse of Crowley’s face falling and he wishes he had managed to take them further away. 

“They’ll rebuild. They always do.” Aziraphale offers softly. He wants to say ‘I didn’t do this’. Or ‘This is _them_ not _me_ don’t be cross with _me_ ’ but it feels as though the words don’t fit properly in his mouth. Crowley takes off his glasses and cleans the soot from the lenses, but his eyes are fixed on the ground beneath long, dark lashes and Aziraphale isn’t permitted to see the gold of his eyes. Crowley doesn’t reply and Aziraphale feels like he is still breathing the hot, burning air of Rome. 

“Didn’t you need me to know something,” Crowley finally drawls, not taking his eyes off the rising clouds of smoke above Rome. They have done this before, Aziraphale remembers. Watched a city burn from the distance. Aziraphale had tried to save the people of Pompeii and Crowley had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck like a disobedient puppy and dragged him to high ground and safe distance. Aziraphale remembers he had cried. The people there had deserved better. 

They always deserve better. 

Aziraphale doesn’t speak until Crowley finally turns on him, getting as close as they can possibly get without being on top of one another. Crowley’s noses brushes his own and Aziraphale stammers, wedging a hand between them and onto Crowley’s chest, giving him a gentle push away. 

“They did this on their own,” he says quietly, “I just wanted you to know. This was... this was all just the humans being sinful-”

He knows he’s chosen the wrong word when Crowley’s face shutters blank and he knows what he has implied. That this was Crowley’s handiwork, inciting wrath and envy and bringing on the sack. He tries to amend his words but they’re already out there and Crowley is already backing away. 

“Good of you to stop by and let me know then. Looks like my demonic work is paying off.” Crowley says flatly, stepping away and turning his back on Aziraphale, calling over his shoulder as he retreats in the general direction of ‘Not Rome’, “See you in a few centuries.”

“Crowley! Crowley get back here this moment you know that isn’t what I meant I know this wasn’t your fault either!”

“I’m going to sleep,” Crowley yells, still stalking off in the opposite direction. Aziraphale looks up at the bright, clear sun in the midday sky and shades his eyes.

“Crowley, it’s not even nighttime.” 

The area they are in plunges into darkness with an annoyed snap of Crowley’s fingers and Aziraphale huffs and follows him at a respectable pace for the shoes he is wearing. Daylight reappears as quickly as it had dimmed with a snap of his own fingers, the very confused wildlife around them becoming a cacophony of protest that he promptly tuned out. 

“You know you can’t just go around doing things like that, Crowley.” he chides, “There’s _order_ to the cycle of the sun and moon.”

“I’m a demon, I can do what I like.” 

Aziraphale finally catches up to Crowley and he knows, with a smile he can’t let break on his face, that the demon had slowed down imperceptibly so he could. He doesn’t turn his head to meet Aziraphale, but he does stop stomping about. 

“I should have chosen my words better, you have my apologies,” Aziraphale begins, “I just meant that it seems as though the humans are getting up to quite a lot on their own, without either of us interfering. Building cities and spreading religions- then burning those cities and killing each other the religions. I just wanted you to know if this had been me, I’d have warned you ahead of time. I know Rome was-” 

He can’t say _home._ Home is such an abstract concept that the humans invented and he doesn’t know if it would even apply here. He looks over in the direction of the city and sighs. He thinks of oysters shared and wine sipped from clay cups. Of sneaking about in the alleys and watching emperor after emperor rise and fall. Catching a glimpse of fire red hair and feeling his heart leap into his throat. Rome had been a glowing beacon for so long, it hurt even Aziraphale a little to watch it come to harm yet again. It hurt even more, deep inside himself, to feel as though this time was somehow different. 

“It was important.” Aziraphale finishes lamely, when the space of silence between them has gone on a beat too long.

Crowley shrugs one shoulder and runs a hand through his hair, “S’fine. Was getting a bit dull these days anyway, probably time for me to move on to somewhere else.” 

“There’s always Greece, you were quite fond of it,” Aziraphale offers, “Or Egypt. We did love Egypt.” 

The _we_ slips out before he can catch it and he coughs, “Well, the royal _we_ obviously. Though we had a run in, did we not? Once or twice?”

He remembers perfectly well that they had. More than once, definitely more than twice. Crowley had taken great pleasure in constantly sprawling in the hot desert sands and terrifying locals into believing he was a dead man. After the fourth time Aziraphale had been called upon to tend to a sick man found laying along the ripple of the horizon, he’d practically begged Crowley to stop his nonsense, or at the very least, stop _playing dead when the locals came._ The demon had merely burrowed himself into the sand and smirked. Aziraphale had left him there. They had watched the pyramids rise slowly from the ground, a pure feat of the humans all on their own that they had both gazed upon with silent awe. Egypt and Rome had becoming tightly wound together at one point, as had most of Rome’s conquered land. It was hardly a surprise that Crowley had eventually taken a shine to the city. Crowley has a ghost of a smile on his face.

“Yeah, once or twice. I was thinking of China, actually. A lot of mischief to be had in China these days.” 

Aziraphale nods absently. He has no business in China at the moment, nor for the foreseeable future. Perhaps they won’t see one another for a while. He knows he can leave now; knows he really need not have come in the first place, all in honesty. But he is here now, and the prospect of returning to his horse for a long ride back isn’t overly pleasant. 

“Now, you mentioned a nap earlier? Perhaps I’ll also partake, if that’s fine with you. Just before I head back.”

He doesn’t tell Crowley where he has been but he knows, somehow, that Crowley could find him if he wanted to anyway. They’ve had a knack for it since The Beginning of this... thing they have. Crowley has his arms folded over his chest but his shoulders aren’t quite as tense as they were before. 

“Thought you didn’t like sleep.” 

Aziraphale arranges himself on the grass under the shade of- he looks up and tuts – an apple tree. How quaint. Crowley’s head tilts ever so slightly upwards and he doesn’t smile, but the hard line of his lips quivers just so in a way that makes Aziraphale feel like a weight has been lifted. 

“I can’t say it’s something I enjoy indulging in quite as much as food, but every now and then it can hardly hurt to pass the time with a little contemplative meditation. And I rode here, you do know how much I hate those blasted horses. Hopefully humans come up with a better alternative soon, they’re so clever like that.” 

He pillows his head on the cross of his palms and stares up at the tree. The apples aren’t ripe just yet, save for one that is spontaneously turning a deep shade of red with alarming speed. Crowley reaches up and plucks it into his open palm, tossing it from one hand to another as he surveys Aziraphale over the top of his glasses. 

“Crowley I can assure you if you say anything in the vein of _tempting_ me to that apple, you can sleep over there.” Aziraphale points off to the right of them, where a tangle of green and purple vine is creeping its way along the ground, sharp thorns proudly barbing the stems. Crowley throws the apple into the air and it transforms into a pear on the way down. 

“Tempt you to this instead?” 

Aziraphale narrows his eyes.

But he takes the pear. 

It is perfectly ripe and juicy in his mouth and he can’t help the pleased hum of satisfaction. 

Crowley has settled onto the (much lusher and softer than it had previously been) grass a few feet from him, finding the largest patch of sun that the leaves of the apple tree is allowing to filter through. It burnishes his hair a deep, rich shade of gold and red and Aziraphale looks away. He knows when Crowley falls asleep, he sees the tight as a bowstring muscles become pliant and soft, the creasing frown disappear off his face. Aziraphale, who had no real intention of sleeping and he is sure Crowley had known it, finds his mind wandering so far from this little patch of grass. Back to Mesopotamia, where Crowley had another name but still the same face. How they had shared the cave to wait out the great storm and Aziraphale had thought nothing would come of it. 

He was glad, for once, to have been wrong. 

He sleeps, but does not dream. He seldom does. When he awakens, he tries not to feel disappointed that Crowley is gone. Rome is still burning in the distance. He rubs at his eyes and looks at the empty patch of grass beside him, still indented with the shape of the demon. Something rustles in the tree and he looks up, half hoping to see Crowley up in between the branches. Instead, he frowns. 

The apple tree is now lousy with pears, no sign of the crisp fruit of Eden in the leaves any longer. One of them detaches from it’s stem and falls, shooting perfectly through the leaves and into Aziraphale’s lap. 

He smiles.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In 410AD, the Visigoths were let through the gates of Rome by slaves (various reasons have been considered as to why they did this) and promptly sacked the city. It's considered by some to be the sack that really signified the declined of the Roman Empire at the time. It lasted for three days, and the Visigoths were quite religious and treated a majority of the Christian churches and artifacts with care, which is why Aziraphale was concerned Crowley would think he had something to do with it.


	5. The Kingdom of Wessex 537AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three months after their last encounter, Aziraphale is certain that Crowley wants his attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief allusions to sex in this chapter.

It isn’t until Aziraphale gets word that the seventh monk in as many weeks has fled the monastery and abandoned his vows that Aziraphale decides he needs to speak to Crowley. He doesn’t have _proof_ that these are Crowley’s shenanigans but he has it on good authority (good authority being the impressively fast acting gossip centre in the area) that there have been sightings of a man in the nearby woods that accurately matches Crowley’s description. The poor girl delivering the message to Aziraphale had blushed so hard while describing him that Aziraphale had taken pity on her and sent her on her way before she had even finished speaking. He rides out on his white mare the next morning, this time without the annoyingly clunky armor to slow him down and make him uncomfortable for three fourths of the journey. The camp of the Black Knight is a days journey away at least, and Aziraphale’s thighs and palms already ache and he’s doing the Lord’s work in telling Crowley off, so he allows himself a miracle some time after the morning sun has disappeared in the thickness of the trees. Crowley hadn’t been wrong when he had called these ‘damp places’, the thickness of the trees and the way the fog rolled into the moors certainly weighed down the air with a moisture Aziraphale didn’t much enjoy. To know his hard efforts here were almost entirely in vain had given him quite a fit when he had returned to his campsite. 

The silence in the forest is unsettling enough, but Aziraphale can tell he’s being watched and that doesn’t inspire confidence. He has a sword, and he knows how to use it as much as he would rather wish not to. The deeper into the trees he nudges his horse, the more eyes he can feel on him.

“I don’t suppose any of you could direct me to your Black Knight?” he calls confidently into the trees. He hears the rustle of someone climbing down a trunk and he is faced with a slim young man, seemingly more bone than flesh, his hair an unruly tangle of black and his eyes just as dark. 

“He said you’d be coming,” he says, one eyebrow quirking in a way that only Crowley could have imprinted. Aziraphale dismounts and hands the reins over to the man before running a calming hand over the mane of his horse. 

“Well here I am. She needs water, it’s been a long ride. Where is he?” 

The man points off into the forest and lets the mare nuzzle into his open palm, “Not far through there, turn left when you see the felled tree and follow the incline. The black tent. Said he’d have a meal for you.”

Aziraphale starts to smile but cuts it off. This is business. He turns his back on the young man without a care, feeling the thrum of goodness that runs through him like a current. He is doing this because his mother was taken ill and he has a sister to take care of; his father was killed fighting for the King. He has anger and resentment but he is, under the hot bubble of young blood, a good man. A soul balanced ever so carefully on the brink of good and evil, waiting for a sleight of hand to tip him one way or another. Aziraphale hopes Crowley won’t lead him so far that the man cannot return to a better path. 

He finds the fallen tree and makes a left, trying to ignore the sticky, wet feeling of the air as it clings to his skin and sticks his hair to his face and neck. The campsite is neatly organized, with several small fires crackling merrily along the forest floor despite being only midday. The black tent is darker than all of the others, almost absorbing any light that manages to filter gently through the canopy above. Aziraphale lifts the flap and ducks his head in, ignoring the sudden silence of the dozen or so men in the camp behind him as they unashamedly stare him down. Crowley is lounging on a high backed wooden bench, legs thrown over one arm rest and his head dangling off the other. He isn’t wearing his glasses.

“Aziraphale! Lovely of you to show up.” 

“You’ve been tempting my monks, Crowley,” Aziraphale chides in lieu of a greeting. The tent is larger than the outside suggests, but Aziraphale is sure that, miraculously, none of Crowley’s men have noticed. Crowley’s lips twist into a smirk and he swings himself upright in the bench and Aziraphale _stares_ at the shoulder length tangle of curls that bounce up with his movement. Crowley either doesn’t notice or chooses to say nothing, instead brandishing a goblet of spiced mead in Aziraphale’s direction and gesturing to the spread of roasted deer and pork, dotted with carrots and cabbage. Aziraphale purses his lips as he takes in the sight.

“Trying to tempt me into something?” 

Crowley smirks around the rim of his own goblet, golden eyes flashing slightly as he tips Aziraphale a wink, “Would it work?” 

“Certainly not.” 

He sits down in the unoccupied bench regardless, because if the food has been prepared it would be a shame to waste it. He knows the men outside are well fed, as much as he is sure Crowley will deny it. Aziraphale is ripping a hard loaf of bread open with his hands when Crowley finally speaks, having finally taken the hint that Aziraphale won’t be taking the lead. The monks were obviously a pull for his attention, as was allowing himself to be sighted, and then going so far as to tell his men that Aziraphale would be arriving- clearly Crowley wanted _something._

“About that little Arrangement we discussed.”

“No.”

The pork was perfectly roasted, the fat dripping with every bite as Aziraphale tried his best to be composed when eating without utensils. He sucked one pointer finger into his mouth and reached for one of the carrots before dabbing gently at his slick mouth with the linen folded neatly by his plate. 

“You haven’t even heard what I-”

“And I’m saying no, Crowley. Do you know what they would do to you if they found out you had been... consorting with an angel? Do you even know what performing miracles for _good_ might do to you?”

Crowley looks... confused. His brow has furrowed and his head is tilted slightly of to the left as though he isn’t sure if he’s heard Aziraphale correctly, and Aziraphale busies himself with the rest of the tender pork. After a long moment, Crowley rests his goblet on the table and slumps back in the bench, hitching one leg up to sprawl over the arm rest. 

“What if I did something... _good_ for you? A little test to see if I can. Anything you want. If I can do it, you do something for me. And if the sky and the ground open up and our respective bosses want to know what we were trying to pull, we say we were each trying to bring the other to the opposite side. And then I will _never ask again_ ,” Crowley drawls. 

“I don’t tempt, Crowley.” 

Crowley mutters something and Aziraphale sucks the pork fat from his thumb, one eyebrow quirked before he pulls it out with a soft _pop, “_ What was that, dear boy?’

“Nothing. Listen,” Crowley swings his legs again and Aziraphale wonders if the demon ever learned how to act appropriately with his limbs, given he used to be a snake. Crowley swaggers over and plants himself on the table, eyes skirting from Aziraphale’s plate, to his fingers, to his face.

“Angel.” 

The words are so soft that Aziraphale can scarcely believe they’ve come from Crowley. 

“Demon.” he says easily in return, feeling a swell of pride when Crowley’s lips twist into a wry smile. 

“Just once?” Crowley offered, “There’s really no miracles you’d have me perform?”

Aziraphale hesitates over the deer meat, remembering the thrum of good under the blood of a man lead astray. It’s not as if Aziraphale couldn’t do it himself, but it would be easier for Crowley to do it. He reaches for his mead and swipes his tongue along the swell of his bottom lip.

“There’s a man here in your camp. He greeted me when I arrived.”

“Robert?”

Crowley seems surprised, but Aziraphale doesn’t question it. Instead, he nods and sucks an errant string of meat from between his teeth, “Mmm that one. Do you know him well?”

Crowley shifts on the table, “Well enough, I suppose. What do you want with him?”

“Oh nothing specific, my dear. But surely you feel the weight of his soul? Caught between both of our sides, seeking someone to lead him on a path? Perhaps you show him the way down mine, and I will repay you the favour.” 

“Done.” 

Aziraphale hadn’t expected Crowley to agree so readily, but he silently congratulates himself regardless. He drags the last of the bread across the remaining fat and drippings on the plate, popping the soaked morsel between his lips with a happy sigh.

“Oh, that was delightful.”

Crowley has busied his face in the goblet and only grunts in response, but Aziraphale has known him long enough to not be bothered by the rudeness. Instead, he cleans his hands and dabs gently at his mouth.

“Does this mean you’ll stop tempting my monks? We do rather need them on my side. If you’re that desperate to talk with me, just send me a bird or something next time, dear.” 

Crowley smiles, all teeth and glowing eyes, “That’s hardly as fun, angel. Besides, those monks were yearning for some temptation.” he jumps off the table and makes for the tent opening, “Do you need to be leaving, I’ll have someone fetch your horse.” 

Aziraphale stammers slightly, and tells himself his hesitation is purely the concern of questions he can’t answer and not the ache of already having to cut their interaction short. Spending time with Crowley, forbidden as it is, can never compare to conversation with regular humans. Crowley has paused on his way to the tent opening, one hip cocked and one eyebrow raised in silent question. Aziraphale dabs his mouth again, though he knows there is nothing there to clean away. 

“Well, I was rather wondering if I could trouble you to stay? I only left this morning, they aren’t expecting me until tomorrow’s nightfall at least and if I arrive back so quickly it might look suspicious.” 

Crowley looks so smug that Aziraphale wonders if perhaps he should have just slept at the base of a tree.

“Did you _miracle_ yourself here?” 

“You were _stealing my monks_ ,” Aziraphale hisses in return, ignoring the creep of red that his traitorous human body is allowing to spread under his collar. 

Crowley is wearing a face that Aziraphale has seen on the village tom cat when it catches a particularly large rat for supper. He saunters over and raises the jug of mead to refill the two goblets to a generous degree. 

“Well then. Shall we resume one of our regular debates? I came across a goose the other day and I’m confident those things are one of _yours_.” 

Midday bleeds into afternoon, which melds seamlessly into nightfall. The jug of mead never seems to run empty, endlessly pouring a supply of the hot and spiced liquid that makes Aziraphale’s heart feel full and his head fill with light. The fires outside the tent grow brighter and hotter in the evening, trying to stave off the chill of the darkness. The camp fills with more men, easily another dozen on top of the ones he had already caught sight of. Crowley- the Black Knight – Aziraphale corrects himself, has quite a following. 

“They’re quite merry tonight,” Crowley grouches as the incredibly off key singing of the men grows louder into the night, “There’s not normally this much... warbling.” 

Aziraphale peers down into his empty goblet with a happy sigh and nods, groping blindly for the jug Crowley had been pouring from to refill it, “Yes, I do believe that’s me. Apologies, my dear. It’s just nice to talk with someone who understands. I might be projecting a little.” 

Crowley snaps his fingers and the goblet refills. Aziraphale can’t help the soft, happy sound he makes. The mead might not hold a candle to any of the wines he had sampled in his time, but it was warm and spiced and bloomed pleasantly in his stomach. The cold night air is breezing through the tent and Aziraphale grumbles at the cold rush on his skin. 

“S’pose it is _damp_ here, really.”

“S’what I ssssaid,” Crowley responds tiredly, head lolling back. 

It’s the cold, Aziraphale tells himself, that leads to them sitting far closer than they need to be. Crowley’s thigh is a touch of warmth against his own and he shuffles himself ever so slightly closer, letting their shoulders knock. That’s how they begin to doze, Aziraphale with his chin propped in his hand with his elbow on the table, and Crowley rested precariously with his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale is warm, both inside and out. He is pleasantly drunk. Crowley’s curls are tickling the barest sliver of skin at his arm. The soft caress of sleep is slipping into his mind.

But it can’t last. 

“You haven’t called for me yet so I thought-”

The flap of the tent swings open and the young man from earlier in the day strides through without announcing himself, hands already reaching for the lace of his shirt. He stops dead when he sees Aziraphale and Crowley sprawled together on the bench, the ruins of mead around them. Crowley has coiled tight like a threatened snake and Aziraphale realizes _why_ when his eyes fall on the exposed skin of Robert’s chest. Across his collar and ribs are marks of a mouth that Aziraphale knows is Crowley’s and he doesn't think about why he knows that. Instead, he thinks about how Robert had walked in without preamble so late at night, already beginning to divest himself of clothing. Aziraphale clears his throat even though he doesn’t need to and moves to stand and sober up.

“I should-”

“No.”

Crowley’s hand is as soft on his arm as his voice, rasped with sleep and layered with an unspoken _please._ Robert is already lacing his shirt and disappearing by the time Crowley has righted himself and followed him out. Aziraphale doesn’t eavesdrop, much as he would like. Instead, he busies himself with a book that Crowley has atop the table, bound in leather with breathtaking calligraphy inside. When Crowley saunters back into the tent, Aziraphale offers him a passing glance and gestures to the mead. 

“Potent stuff,” he says softly, “Forgot myself for a moment there. Are you sure you’d not rather I leave for the evening? I didn’t realize you were expecting company.”

“No, angel. You can stay.”

Crowley doesn’t return to the seat beside him, and Aziraphale pretends he doesn’t notice. He thinks of what to say, but eventually just allows the silence to take over. Their moment from earlier is gone. The spell had been broken. 

“Crowley... I didn’t know you had, ah, a relation with the man. You need not sway him either way.” Aziraphale begins carefully, flicking one of the heavy pages under his fingers. 

“S’not a relation, angel,” Crowley mumbles, “it’s just... company. Don’t think you’re getting out of our deal that easy.”

Aziraphale doesn’t speak again until much later, having been absorbed in the poetry pressed between the pages of the book. He begins to ask why Crowley has it, who it had been written by. But there is nothing but silence in response. 

Crowley is sprawled on the makeshift bed with his usual amount of grace, empty goblet dangling from his long fingers and one leg slung off the furs entirely. Aziraphale tuts and rights the goblet before giving Crowley a gentle nudge with his booted foot, watching as the demon curls in one himself and burrows his face into the heavy fur. The dulling fire outside the tent flickers just so and it catches the deep red curl of his hair and Aziraphale pauses. His feelings in regards to Crowley are understandable, he reasons. There is no one else who has been here as long as Aziraphale has; no one else who has seen and done things that history will never know of. And yet, when the fire sparks again and Crowley’s hair ripples a deep, forbidden red like the apples of Eden, Aziraphale feels something much different begin to surface. 

He unhitches his horse from the tree in the morning and pretends he can’t feel Robert’s sharp eyes piercing into his back. What Crowley does or doesn’t do with his time is no business of Aziraphale’s and it’s hardly as though he can say he hasn’t taken human companions in his time, though he is sure what he does with them and what Crowley does with his are very different ideas of comfort. He leaves without saying goodbye and forces himself to ride the entire way back, considering it penance for staying the rest of the evening in the wooden chair and being hardly able to take his eyes of the sleeping demon. 

Robert’s soul falls into favour with heaven just shy of two months later, and Aziraphale waits to see what Crowley is going to ask from him. The answer comes attached to, of all things, a _dove,_ with a single message in tiny print. 

_The King needs a new sexual interest. Good luck._

Aziraphale feels bad when he tempts the King to take a lover, but he also knows the King and Queen have never loved one another so it hurts a little less. He isn’t sure how to go about it until he sees the woman he chooses; hair the colour of fire and a tangle of carefree curls. Eyes wide and dark and inquisitive and a smile that curls in a way that makes Aziraphale’s body sing in acknowledgement. He leans in to the King’s ear and points, ever so casually, at the woman. 

“Isn’t she something,” he murmurs into his goblet, “Have you ever seen someone so beautiful before?” 

The King waves a hand and looks away but Aziraphale catches the ever so subtle glance from the corner of his eye. Lust, he realises, isn’t hard. He makes sure the two are around one another but never close enough, makes sure the King catches the woman doing her regular duties, her hair piled high and the curve of her neck catching the sunlight when she tips her head back and laughs. He feels the King _want_ and _yearn._ The two are in bed together within the week, and the mistress is expecting before the season turns. He doesn’t know why Hell wanted the Queen out of the way, but he supposes it doesn’t matter. He and Crowley don’t speak of their actions again until the dawn of the millennium, when they pretend it never happened and agree that maybe sometimes, they could help one another out. 

They also don’t speak of the night in the tent, where Crowley had so easily rested upon Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

It doesn’t hurt, Aziraphale tells himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real history to fill in here, just two dorks being hopeless.


	6. London 1349AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pestilence had outdone themselves with this particular endeavor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some descriptions of the plague. A character suffering quite an intense amount of pain but no graphic scenes and no death.

London reeks of death, which is somewhat ironic given that it is Pestilence that has done the bidding. Aziraphale has watched the sickness ravage the humans for what seems like eternity. He had been in Italy, at the very beginning; just as unaware and confused as the people around him. He had come to London to try and escape it, having seen too much and disease and death in the few short months as it had crept its way from city to city. But, as Aziraphale had expected, the first tell tale signs had begun to emerge only weeks after he arrived. 

He’s trying his best to do what he can, of course, giving blessings here and there, whispering words of calm to the ones dying in the streets and promising something better after it is over, even though he feels in some of them that they won’t be arriving at the gates of Heaven. Aziraphale has learned that sometimes it is easier to lie. The humans do much better with lies. The churches are overrun with people clamouring for salvation, for forgiveness. Aziraphale had tried to find a polite way to ask Gabriel if Heaven had anything to do with the current state of things and Gabriel had completely misinterpreted his intention of horror. Gabriel had, with mounting enthusiasm, explained that Heaven had _nothing_ to do with this, and that Pestilence running amok had worked out in their favour and they were loving the sudden influx of repentant souls. Aziraphale had left Heaven feeling unsettled in more ways than one. 

He has been doing what he can for the overworked priests, bolstering their health and making their scant hours of rest enough to keep them working hard and alert through the bleak days. He stands beside the mass graves and says the names of the dead aloud, one by one, because somebody should. 

It has been a particularly bad day, when Aziraphale finds himself walking the streets of London by the moonlight. He has seen over one hundred people die. Watched terrified people fight and scream at the mouth of the church that was full to bursting and could fit no more inside it. 

Aziraphale is tired. 

There is a sound from the end of the alley, the scuffle of feet accompanied by a low, pitiful moan. Aziraphale had been drawn here by a pull he couldn’t explain, meandering the streets and shadowed lanes until he had found where he needed to be. He makes his way down, prepared to find the body of someone he can only sit with while they die, hold their hand and stroke their hair while the body the Almighty gave them betrays them. 

Instead, he finds Crowley. The demon is doubled over, whining low and soft like a dog kicked too many times. He looks up. His glasses are gone. 

“Oh good, you found me. About time.” Crowley gasps, before promptly falling into Aziraphale’s general direction. 

“Crowley what happened?”

He has his arm around Crowley’s shoulders, trying to support the dead weight of him as he drags himself against the stone walls. Crowley looks wrung out and impossibly exhausted. His legs can’t hold him up, his skin is grey and sickly with a sheen of slick across it. Aziraphale wonders for the briefest moment if he’s caught the plague, but that would be impossible. They might have human vessels capable of human behaviours but they can’t ever catch illness like the humans. 

“Had a bit of a chat with Pestilence. Didn’t go so well.” Crowley slurs, his eyes blown and unfocused and trying valiantly to keep Aziraphale in his line of sight. 

“Pestilence did this to you?”

Aziraphale has encountered all of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse during his time on Earth. Of the four, he only finds Death to be worth making conversation with. Pestilence, of them all, is the most unfriendly. Which Aziraphale has privately felt to be quite odd, considering that War is the one making sure people never get along. The very brief chat Aziraphale had with Pestilence had happened sometime in the early centuries of the common era, when Aziraphale had tried to inquire about the necessity of the smallpox outbreak in China and was promptly told to keep his nose out of it. 

Crowley scrapes blunt fingernails against the cloth covering his chest until it falls open to expose the wide black mark nestled where his human heart lay under the skin, “They did that. Didn’t like me asking why they had to come round and cock up the century with this plague nonsense. Jabbed me right there and it felt- felt like a smite to be honest. Could barely stand on my feet after. But that wasn’t the worssssst of it,” 

Crowley’s words slide into a low hiss and Aziraphale can see a prickle of scales blooming at the base of Crowley’s neck. 

“Keep talking, dear,” Aziraphale encourages as he steers him to the closest building he can find that is miraculously empty. Crowley can’t be out in public like this, Aziraphale can already see the sharp warp of reality around Crowley’s back, he’s losing control of his human corporation and the last thing either of them need is him manifesting his wings in the middle of London. Crowley growls low in his throat and lets himself be manhandled. 

“A priesssssst,” he hisses, the humanity in his eyes giving way fully to bright yellow serpent eyes, “Thought he wasss doing me a favour. Must’ve thought I’d taken ill. Gave me a blassssted blesssing,” 

“A blessing? Crowley, you’ve been _blessed?_ ”

It’s worse than plague, as far as Aziraphale is concerned. How Crowley is even managing to keep a hold of his corporation is a mystery. It wouldn’t destroy him, not in the same way Holy Water could. Priests may be connected to the Almighty on some level but they were, at the very core, still nothing but humans. But it would hurt, and it explained the lack of control. The door swings open without being touched and Aziraphale drags Crowley into the empty building, likely a storefront at one time or another but now long abandoned. Crowley is writhing in Aziraphale’s grip, long, deep hisses slithering from his lips as he squirms and flails. 

“Crowley. Crowley look at me.” 

“Killl me,” Crowley rasps, body arching back in an unnatural bend before snapping back. He’s practically sobbing now and Aziraphale can _feel_ the Holy Light inside him from the priest’s blessing. Blessing are being thrown about all over the place these days, what with the plague and all. The priest could have said almost anything to Crowley, but only some of them would have carried enough weight that they could do him any serious or long lasting harm. Crowley has curled himself up on the filthy floor, gasping and spasming and giving up trying to stifle his screams. 

“Crowley I need to know what he said, exactly.” 

“ _Why doessss it matter?”_

“Because I said it does. I can help you, but only if you let me.” 

Crowley’s eyes are wide, darting back and forth between Aziraphale and the exit. He is breathing heavily through his clenched teeth even though he doesn’t need the air but it must be helping, because he gasps out what he can. 

“Touched- touched my forehead. Before I could sssstop him. Sssaid may the Lord blessssssss-” the word is drawn out like it hurts him and Aziraphale reaches out and grabs Crowley’s shoulder, digging his nails in to the muscle and tendon to bring Crowley’s attention back.

“ _Ack!_ Bless you in your sicknesss and bring you peacssse.” 

Aziraphale breathes a sigh of relief, bringing his forehead to Crowley’s before he can stop himself. As far as it goes, it’s the lesser of the blessings, really. No calling upon the Light, no filling Crowley with the love of the Lord, no call for guidance or mercy. “You’re not going to die, Crowley, it’s just going to hurt an awful lot. But you won’t even discorporate.”

“ _blood_ y _feels like it why iss it getting worssse_ ,”

Aziraphae grimaces, “Well, your body is sensitive to anything holy right now, I think my presence isn’t much helping. I’ll leave you here and-”

“ _ **NO!”**_

Crowley’s hands are on him, drawing him in by the fabric at his chest and refusing to let him leave. Crowley’s eyes are even more panicked than before. 

“Crowley I can’t stay. It’ll hurt more if I’m here-”

“I’m _vulnerable_ ,” he hisses, “Do you know what anyone could do to me if they found me like thisssss? Sssssstay with me.” 

Aziraphale can hardly say no to that. Crowley has asked for a lot of things during their acquaintanceship, but never like this. Never with a raw edge in his voice and panic in his eyes. A demon alone in a time like this, unable to control themselves... anything could happen. Aziraphale doesn’t say anything, just drops to his knees on the floor with Crowley and feels him relax, but is short lived. 

“ _Argh!”_

Crowley’s wings burst into existence as he writhes again, barely muffling a screech of pain into the skin of his forearm, leaving a deep impression of teeth in the flesh. His wings are large enough that they black out the few windows the building has, shrouding them in a sudden darkness save for Crowley’s burning yellow eyes. Aziraphale was closer to Crowley than is standard, when his wings make their appearance. The softness on his cheek is surprising, to say the least. He has heard stories of demon wings before, sharp as thorns and edged like blades. These are soft, but not downy; black but rippled with other deep jewel tones in the very inner feathers. His fingers itch with the urge to touch but Crowley releases another pained scream of agony and kicks out his legs, the movement letting his wings droop and reveal a sliver of moonlight. 

“It’ssssssss _burning_.”

“It’s going to,” Aziraphale says apologetically, “But it’s going to end. You might- you might consider-” 

It feels rude to suggest, really. He knows Crowley will shift occasionally, though Aziraphale has never been around to see it. But it would likely be easier to deal with the effects of the blessing without all of the window dressing that came along with human forms. 

“ _consider what!!!”_

Aziraphale makes the suggestion, slowly and tentatively so as not to offend. His human corporation was designed by the Almighty, after all; while his serpent form was intended as punishment and will not contain anything that is as much holy as a human form. Crowley doesn’t seem to think twice, however, before his red hair, pale face and dark clothes and darker wings are melting away, stretching and warping into something much different. He hasn’t seen Crowley in his snake form since Eden, and even then he had only really caught a glimpse. His scales are black, shifting purple and green as the dim light catches them just so. He tries not to stare, though considering the form takes up a good portion of the room with it’s long, thick twist of muscle, it’s rather difficult. The impossibly large serpent slithers across the floor without a sound, only the soft hiss as he raises to be eye to eye with Aziraphale.

“ _Feels better..”_

“I can’t promise anything,” Aziraphale warns, and Crowley’s snake form shudders and he hisses, exposing his sharp fangs as he twists himself down onto the floor in a pang of sudden agony. 

“Can I do anything for you?” Aziraphale offers, followed promptly by wondering how Crowley managed to _still_ look like he was bursting with attitude when he didn’t even have a human face. 

“ _Kill that bloody priesssst will you?”_

Normally Aziraphale would admonish Crowley for his words, but given the circumstances he allows him some room for complaint. It must hurt quite a bit, being filled with the blessing of the Almighty. There are few things that can cause an angel the same level of pain that Crowley is experiencing, and Aziraphale has been lucky enough to not be exposed to them as of yet.

“Tell me what he looked like and I’ll stop by.”

He won’t do anything harmful to the man, obviously. He had only been trying to help, but if it would make Crowley feel better for the priest to endure a few daily inconveniences, Aziraphale would make them happen. He watches in pained silence as Crowley twitches and lurches, gasping and shuddering and _squirming_ on the ground. 

“If you can manage it, you might want to try sleeping it off. Maybe you’ll avoid the worst of it.” 

Crowley seems to consider it, head swaying back and forth before he slithers close. He coils up tight against Aziraphale, the firm wall of muscle pressing intently against his thigh while Crowley’s upper half winds around him before his head slips into the open gape of Aziraphale’s shirt. Aziraphale can feel Crowley’s tail working easily around his hips. 

“Crowley!”

“ _Warm_ ” is the only response he is deemed worthy of in his scandalized state before Crowley’s head ducks out of sight. 

Aziraphale tries to ignore the queer feeling of a snake wrapped entirely around him, encircling his hips and thighs, encasing his rib cage and laying directly over his heart. It makes sense, in his mind, that Crowley would want to be this close at a time like this. He has had to relinquish his control of his own safety, and by curling himself so tight around Aziraphale, he has gained at least a modicum of it back. He feels the ripple of the muscle when a stab of pain shoots through it, feels the cool scales turn white hot on his own soft stomach but he takes the pain with no emotion. Crowley must feel worse right now. Aziraphale can handle a little warmth. Aziraphale keeps his hand firm on Crowley’s scales all night, stroking them lightly every now and then when he can’t quite wrestle with the urge. Every few moments Crowley’s form will uncoil like a whip, a hiss of pain and as close to a scream as a serpent can manage. 

Aziraphale waits, and tries not to consider what would have happened had the priest decided to give Crowley a proper blessing. 

Crowley is still a snake when the sun rises, twitching and curling in his sleep and hissing every so often. Aziraphale stays. 

He is a snake at midday, when the sun spills through the window and he hisses angrily and awakens long enough to slither into the darkest corner of the room and glower at Aziraphale until he follows. His body still trembles every few hours, white hot pain pulsing through the scales. 

The sun set hours ago by the time Crowley finally unwinds himself from Aziraphale and the serpent of Eden disappears, the figure of Crowley that Aziraphale has become accustomed to emerging. His hair is a wreck, his skin still pale but no longer edging on sickly. He hasn’t had pain since sundown. 

“I hate this century and it isn’t even half over.” Crowley says in lieu of pleasantries. 

Aziraphale knows they will pretend this never happened. Crowley will saunter out with his usual grace and they will see one another in the street, or for the Arrangement, and they will say nothing. Aziraphale will pretend he doesn’t know what it feels like to have Crowley pressed against his ribs; and he won’t dwell on the horror and panic he felt when he thought, for the briefest moment, he would lose the demon. 

Instead, Aziraphale thinks of the bodies in the graves that nobody will remember the names of. Of the stench of death that seems to have made itself at home in his clothing no matter how many miracles he uses. Of Gabriel’s excitement at the sheer number of people turning to God in search of protection or answers. Of Crowley, sobbing and writhing on the floor beside him. 

“I’m inclined to agree, my dear.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plague hit London specifically around the autumn of 1348 and promptly went to town at killing people. I set this the year after, though in the timeline I would say early months of 1349 rather than later. Europe was a wreck with plague since about 1347, where its believed to have reached Sicily from China and spread from there, though numbers have been widely disputed in regards to how many people died due to gross exaggeration and it being difficult to pinpoint exact populations in the time before the plague hit. 
> 
> Big reasons for the quick spread in London are considered to be the lack of general cleanliness and the large populations of people living in close quarters. The river Thames was also a big factor in helping spread the disease. Given the high number of deaths per day, a lot of people were buried in mass graves or open pits.
> 
> It's an interesting piece of history, but if you're going to Google it I'd just recommend being aware that there is a lot of depressing history connected to it and it's not a happy story to read.


	7. London Theatre 1597 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's a love story, Crowley. It's hardly going to be gloomy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of all the chapters, this is the one that got away from me a bit.  
> Allusions to and discussions of sex, but nothing graphic.

The man Crowley has been trying to tempt is annoyingly resilient. Four days of creeping in the shadows and hissing doubts in his ear has gotten him barely anywhere and he's getting desperate. He has a reputation to uphold Down There and if he doesn't get this one in the bag they'll start asking questions he doesn't much feel like answering. The objective is to convince the man that his closest friend has been working against him and cause a rift between the two. He doesn’t know the specifics of what they would achieve but he knows it needs to be stopped, so here he is, in the tightly packed Theatre with his back to a wall and not being seen purely because he doesn’t want to be. 

"He's never worked as hard as you," Crowley tempts gently, "yet he takes the credit he didn't earn. He's mocking you right now, look how he dressed for a simple play. Flaunting his wealth at you like that." 

He watches as the man turned to his companion, but Crowley can tell he was still just out of reach. He doesn’t understand why this particular one is so hard, why this man is so intent on believing that his friend is a good man that the temptations are rolling off him like water from the back of a duck. He has tried jealousy and greed, tried suggesting the man has coveted his wife in secret, inferred that missing coins and wares were weighing down his friend’s pockets. Nothing.

And then the feeling strikes Crowley right in the gut, the soft simmering _something_ that Crowley hasn’t been able to name in the days he has followed the man. The man’s companion turns to him and _smiles_ and Crowley knows. The barest, ever so soft, flicker of yearning love that lingers from his target. He knows what to say, knows exactly where to slide the knife so the bloods pools too quick for anyone to save him. He leans in, loading his words with temptation and jealousy like a snake preparing venom for its next strike. 

"He means everything to you and yet you mean nothing to him. He will never love you. Never touch you the way he touches her. He knows you watch him and he _laughsssss about it._ " 

Those chosen words are the breaking point. He feels the snap of virtue and the rush of a soul collected. Four days and he is finally done. He doesn’t stick around to see what happens after, instead sliding easily through the crowd towards the door, stopping short when he caches the sight of familiar white curls in the very back of the theatre. If Aziraphale has been the reason it had taken so long to tempt his man, Crowley is going to make him take the next two Arrangement deals out if sheer spite. 

"Aziraphale?" 

The angel, who has been fastidiously organizing his small bunch of grapes into degrees of ripeness looks up and beams, “Oh my goodness, Crowley! What are you doing here, my dear boy?”

Crowley purses his lips and points over his shoulder, where the two men are in the process of having a heated conversation in hushed tones. Aziraphale looks past, frowns, and holds out a handful of grapes. 

“On business, I should have guessed.”

“I can enjoy the theatre, angel,” Crowley defends, slinking himself up against a support beam and staring out over the crowd. He has never been to this stagehouse in particular, but he has never seen quite so many people arriving for a play before. The last one he had seen was another one of Shakespeare’s and he’d rather enjoyed himself. There’d been something about twins. It had been funny. He takes one single grape and places it between his teeth, cracking the thin skin before biting down and catching the juice with a quick flick of his tongue. It’s sweeter than he would prefer. He doesn’t take another. Aziraphale looks at him, then away, before glancing back up again for the briefest moment. 

"Well since you're here, would you like to stay for the play? I've heard it's one of his best to date. And you would be able to keep an eye on... whatever it is you were doing over there." 

It's logical, Crowley decides as he throws himself into the chair beside Aziraphale and pretends not to notice the satisfied smile that stretches across the angels face. Their seats are the ones normally reserved for those wanting to flaunt their notoriety. Unlike the milling people standing on their feet below them, they are comfortably settled in the galleries where they can relax. Miraculously, nobody seems to notice they are there. Nor has anyone taken the seats around them. He smirks, because he knows it’s not a miracle he performed, which means Aziraphale has been dabbling in a little bit of sin for himself. He doesn’t know which play he’s sauntered in to, only knowing it was one of Shakespeare’s so it could hardly be terrible. He glances over to where he had left the two men, finding them now hardly bothering to try and stop making a scene. Beside him, Aziraphale is hardly bothering to keep his excitement to himself, squirming in his seat and practically dancing. 

“Oh it’s so excellent you’re here! A young woman I was working with told me she cried for _days_ after seeing it.” 

"No, Aziraphale," Crowley whines, "you didn't tell me this was one of the bloody gloomy ones. I’d never have stayed you know how much I hate the depressing ones." 

"Its a love story, my dear," Aziraphale snaps back without malice, "Its hardly going to be gloomy. And you need not stay if you’d rather be somewhere else."

Crowley lets himself slide down further into the seat. He’s not going anywhere, not that he really has anywhere else to be. How bad could it possibly be anyway?

The crowd ripples to a hush as the narrator steps across the stage, face solemn as he begins to speak. Crowley side eyes Aziraphale, who is already leaning forward in his seat with rapt attention. The premise of the story seems fine enough. Feuding families, blood sworn anger. Maybe there’d be a _murder_. Crowley did love a good stage murder. 

"... a pair of star crossed lovers take their life-" 

Aziraphale’s sharp inhale makes Crowley’s stomach turn. 

Oh. 

Oh this was definitely going to be one of the gloomy ones. 

He sinks down in his seat and shoves his glasses closer to his eyes as the play begins, already calculating how much wine he’s going to need to get through it. It’s a lot. The men he tempted have disappeared already, clearly having decided to take their argument out from the public eye and he knows he has the perfect excuse to leave now. 

But he doesn’t. 

Aziraphale is lost in the play from the moment it begins, hands fisting in his breeches and his feet tapping ever so softly on the floor of the gallery when something particularly interesting happened. Watching Aziraphale is more interesting than watching the play. When Romeo and Juliet meet he practically melts, a hand on his chest and his mouth rounded in a soft ‘oh’ of happiness. When they kiss, he smiles so widely that even Crowley can’t help but smile as well. Aziraphale is enraptured by the pair on the balcony, one hand on his chest and the other on the wood of the gallery beams. Crowley eats the grapes that Aziraphale has abandoned. 

Aziraphale gasps when Mercutio dies, his hands flying up to his mouth in horror. At least there was a murder, Crowley reasons. A stage murder was always so dramatic. Crowley tempts an orange from the woman making her way among the crowds and digs his nails into the flesh, hearing it hiss apart before the strong scent wafts over him. He waves it under Aziraphale’s nose, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the stage. Aziraphale doesn’t notice the fruit until Crowley takes his hand and presses the segment into his palm, pushing a little too hard and squeezing a droplet of juice or two across the skin. 

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale murmurs distractedly, still not dragging his eyes from the stage. 

If not even food can distract the angel, there is no turning back now. Crowley accepts his fate and leans back in the chair, fixing his shaded eyes on the stage and trying to think of how much wine he currently has access to in his home. The play isn’t _bad,_ by any means. Crowley has seen far worse during his jaunts to the theatre and all things considered, this one could be rather good. But there’s something about it that resonates so painfully in his chest, like a sucking void that can’t be filled. He and the angel may not be two star crossed lovers by any means, but Crowley certainly had an understanding of what it could do to someone to have to hide for fear of persecution. 

The deaths go about as well as Crowley had predicted. Romeo drinks from the vial and Aziraphale chokes up, muffling a quiet whine of horror into his hands when Juliet awakens to find him dead. When the dagger pierces through her chest Aziraphale looks away as though it were a real weapon sinking into real flesh. 

“They told you they died at the beginning, angel,” Crowley says softly into his ear. 

Aziraphale dabs at his cheeks with his fingers and sniffles, “That hardly makes it less painful, Crowley.” 

How, in the entirety of his outfit, Aziraphale doesn’t have a handkerchief is a mystery. Crowley hands over his, the black fabric so stark against Aziraphale’s pale hands that he almost wants to tear it away. Aziraphale whispers a soft thanks as the play comes to a close, dabbing lightly at his cheeks and eyes as the tears continue to fall. They wait until most of the crowd is gone before they leave the gallery, Aziraphale missing the usual bounce in his step and the light on his face. Crowley steers him away from the main exit with a firm arm around his shoulders, pulling him back through the stagehouse and out through the entrance for performers. Romeo and Tybalt are having an aggressive snog in the corner while Shakespeare himself runs a gentle finger along the arm of Juliet’s actor. Nobody notices them. 

“I knew there was a nice garden out here,” Crowley explains as they leave, though Aziraphale hasn’t asked. ‘Nice’ is a bit much for the garden, containing a few shrubs, an untamed rose bush and some creeping vines. But Aziraphale likes nature, has done since Eden. Crowley just wants to wipe the misery off his face. There are birds perched close together in the crook of a tree, chirping softly back and forth. Aziraphale cracks a sad, gentle smile and Crowley briefly considers killing Shakespeare. 

“Come back with me,” he offers, peering over the top of his glasses at Aziraphale, who is still flushed from tears. He’s going to say no, Crowley knows it. It’s what they do. He tempts, Aziraphale thwarts. He tempts again, finding some way to make their interactions about business. Aziraphale considers it. Then they drink, or they eat. They share just enough business talk to make them both feel like it’s proper of them to be socializing. But this time is different. Aziraphale dabs lightly at his cheeks and sighs. 

“Yes, alright.” 

The lack of protest, the deviation from their norm, it makes Crowley frown. The angel must truly be miserable to not even call him a fiend. He leads Aziraphale through the streets of London with one hand lingering on the curve of his back for a reason he assures himself is to make sure the angel doesn’t try and make an escape. Miserable angels do frivolous miracles that gain too much attention. The door to his current location – not home, never home – is never locked when he tries the handle, but would never dare to open for anyone else. The space is large enough for him and the things he doesn’t own, with doors that open out onto a balcony where the afternoon sun sits perfectly in the sky. There is a fireplace, which crackles all day because London can never be as warm as he wants it to be. His bed is a masterpiece of oak wood, four posters with heavy tapestries and a mattress stuffed with feathers instead of straw. He’d seen one in the room of a wealthy man he had been tempting and a perfect match had appeared in his own, ready and waiting for him to throw himself down on it. 

The humans were getting better at making sloth easy for him. 

He has no use for chairs and stools, not when he is the only one here. Aziraphale doesn’t even protest when Crowley gestures broadly to the bed and he sinks onto it, hands folded properly in his lap while Crowley pours them both cups of sack. Shakespeare might be a daft bugger, writing _love stories_ like the one he had just witnessed, but the man knew how to recommend a drink. 

“Say something, Aziraphale,” Crowley snaps, though not unkindly. He drinks deep from his own cup and reaches for his glasses, slides them off his face and suddenly feels self conscious when he meets Aziraphale’s eyes. 

“Did you like the play?” Aziraphale asks softly, swishing the wine in his cup this way and that before bringing it to his mouth and sighing.

“I-what- _No_. No, I can’t say I did. Not his best, not even close.” 

“You do like it when they murder one another though,” Aziraphale reminds him, “There were a few of those.” 

Crowley sits on the bed, feels the sink of the feathers under him and sprawls against the wall, “Hardly makes up for the rest of the nonsense.” 

Aziraphale hmms softly and doesn’t meet his eye. He drinks some more, savouring the liquid in his mouth before swallowing and going in for more. He’s missing his usual enthusiasm and verve and Crowley hates it.

"They were so in love," Aziraphale mopes, staring down into his wine. 

Crowley adds another generous slosh of liquid into the cup, "They'd known each other maybe three days, angel. Really nothing to fret over." 

Aziraphale huffs and jabs a finger in Crowley’s direction, "Time doesn't determine love. It helps it grow, helps it mature and blossom but it hardly determines whether or not the love is real.” 

Crowley isn’t thinking about Eden. About the wall. About a wing held so carefully over his head despite the fact that the angel beside him can see Adam and Eve out in the desert and knows it is his fault. Instead of thinking about it, he wets his lips and raises an eyebrow.

“Helps though, surely? Knowing someone a long time. Knowing who they truly are. Romeo was lusting after Rosaline only moments before he even met Juliet then suddenly they’re killing themselves. Seems a bit much, is all I’m saying.”

“Love doesn’t work with order, Crowley! It’s-”

“If you say ineffable I’m going to throw you off that balcony.”

The threat is empty and they both know it, but huffs.

“Crowley you aren’t understanding me,” he grouches, looking down into his empty cup and frowning until it refills. He spares Crowley a glance, the barest flicker of his eyes and a whisper of a smile. 

“Then explain it to me, angel,” Crowley offers considerately. He has all night. All of tomorrow if need be. 

Aziraphale seems shocked at the offer, opening and closing his mouth several times before setting down his cup, clearly trying to choose his words carefully, “I'm a being of love, Crowley. I feel it every day, in all its forms, constantly humming through the air. And humans might have done a lot of good things but I do feel like they've rather... muddled the idea of what love can be. Love takes many forms and all of them are, in their very essence, good. I did like the way the Greeks had their little system it’s unfortunate it never made it over here. There’s a love of passion, a love of understanding. Friendship. Familial. A love for God and all of her creations. The possibilities are endless. Humans have just gotten this idea that love needs to be one thing. That it needs structure and reason and needs to be a certain way or it couldn’t possibly be _real_. All love is good, and all love is real. The greatest love, some of the loves that I’ve seen, they’re hardly even containable in such a word.”

Aziraphale’s voice is so tight and wistful that it almost turns the sack to vinegar in Crowley’s mouth. His whole face is radiant, lighting up with comfort and warmth as he speaks of love and Crowley regrets ever coming to London, ever seeing the play and inviting the angel back here because he will never be able to forget the way Aziraphale looks at this moment. But Aziraphale isn’t done speaking, has still abandoned his drink and has his eyes wide and his lips parted.

"Sometimes two people see one another from across the room and-" Aziraphale splays a hand on his chest and closes his eyes, "-and they feel like the world stopped moving under their feet. That time and space itself came to a halt for this moment between the two of them. And for the people who didn’t _feel_ it, they dismiss it as too early for such a feeling. But it isn’t, Crowley. It truly isn’t.” 

_I gave it away_

_You what?_

“I guess.” 

Aziraphale blinks, like he had expected mockery and dismissal for his words. Crowley busies his face in his cup and wishes he hadn’t removed his glasses. Aziraphale looks like he’s going to say something fond, so Crowley switches the track with a casual toss of his head to knock back the loose red curls and slumps down. 

“Still think it’s daft. But then again, I’m not a being of love.” 

He hopes it is enough to steer the conversation elsewhere, and he thinks, for the briefest moment, that he has succeeded when Aziraphale asks about his business in London. A few temptations, the occasional suggestion of theft and adultery in the ear of a good man. Aziraphale listens and nods at appropriate intervals, drinking his wine until Crowley can see the sheen of inebriation in his eyes. Crowley is behind on drinks by design, not trusting himself to let loose as much as he usually would with the angel. 

“I’m here on business as well, actually,” Aziraphale admits softly into his cup of sack, “There’s a young woman in the village nearby that my side would like me to bring to the church.” 

He doesn’t look happy about it, so Crowley purses his lips and prompts him, ever so gently. “So?” 

“ _So_... she’s got a lovely gentleman in her life, and he isn’t part of the Plan. I’m to break them up, apparently, and I- I _can’t_. Crowley, you should see how they look at one another. How he reaches for her when she isn’t there, the way she smiles when he isn’t looking. I- I can’t do it, Crowley. And they’re going to be upset with me.” 

Aziraphale has been changing throughout the millennia, Crowley has noticed. It’s been obvious that he’s had doubts about the ineffable plan before, but as the years stretch ahead of them and the humans grow and build, Aziraphale has become different. He doesn’t just look sad about the thought of coming between this particular love story, he looks _devastated_. Crowley drinks, and pretends to consider something. 

“You know...” he begins, seeing Aziraphale shoot him a soft, hopeful glance, “Given that I’m supposed to be thwarting your miracles and all that... it’s be a damned shame if that young couple was to be, say... married? Before you got to her. A miraculous and sudden _holy arrangement_ between two people under the eyes of the Almighty? Don’t think heaven could allow themselves to break a union like that.”

He lets the suggestion drip like honey and Aziraphale’s eyes widen at the implication of it. Aziraphale’s face breaks out into a smile that reminds Crowley of the first time the tendrils of sunrise spilled over the horizon in Eden. He will do _anything,_ he thinks, to see that smile again. 

And then Aziraphale mucks it up by opening his bloody mouth. 

“Oh, Crowley... I know we’re on opposite sides but I- I do rather enjoy your company. I know you have a reputation to uphold but you’re rather quite nice-”

Crowley has his hands in the front of Aziraphale’s shirt, rumpling the perfectly crisp fabric that has, up until this moment, miraculously never rumpled. 

“I’m not nice, angel. I’m a demon. I do cruel and horrible things, I tempt people to sin, I take all of that _love_ and I turn it to lust and want and need. All those excellent human sins and I feast on them do you understand? When that young woman isn’t with the church she will be in bed with her husband, drinking her fill of him and worshipping _him_ as her God. Not everyone has to be _good_ like you, angel.” 

Aziraphale should be scared, but Crowley knows he isn’t. He slides his hand over Crowley’s and detangles the grip on the fabric, which falls neatly into place as though never disturbed. They don’t say anything afterwards, they only drink. Aziraphale breaks the uncomfortable silence when he falls over the edge of tipsy into drunkenness. He talks about food, as he is wont to do. He tells Crowley about fresh loaves of bread and figs dragged through honey, of blackberry wines and _‘cheese, Crowley. Oh you should see the kinds of cheese they’re making’._ Crowley smiles because he can’t help it, not when Aziraphale is so enraptured by the humans and their brilliance. They don’t speak any more of love and he likes it that way. The sun goes down on them in a swirl of pink and burnt orange that dissolves into the ink blue and clusters of stars of the night sky. Aziraphale looks out the window and down to his cup, blinks very rapidly and smacks his lips. Crowley prepares for the goodbyes, for the ‘this was business’ stiffness they have become accustomed to. Instead, Aziraphale stretches his arms above his head and sighs. 

“Might I stay here tonight, Crowley? I can’t say I’ve ever seen a bed quite this lovely and I’m rather worn down and I just don’t know if I feel like sobering up it’s been.. it’s been a long day...”

Crowley considers saying no. Considers sending Aziraphale on his way with a polite rejection but when he sees Aziraphale running his hands down the material of the blankets he sighs. The bed is big enough for the both of them, and it’s hardly the first time. And he would be able to prevent Aziraphale running off into the streets of London, well past tipsy, shooting miracles left and right. Again. He pulls back the bed coverings and gives Aziraphale a pointed poke in the upper arm. 

“This is my side. You sleep over there.” 

“Oh _thank you_ , my dear.”

“Don’t.” 

He doesn’t want to be thanked because somewhere, deep inside his chest, he knows he is being selfish. That he’s going to relish the warmth of Aziraphale’s body and tomorrow morning the bed will smell of angel and Crowley can bask in it for a moment and pretend. There is no need for thanks here, but he could never tells Aziraphale that. He snaps his fingers and the room becomes fully dark, not even the light of the moon daring to peek through onto the bed. Crowley can’t stand the thought of seeing Aziraphale bathed in the moonlight, seeing it shine softly off his curls and dip into the hollows in his neck. 

Crowley closes his eyes and tries to sleep.

“I have always wondered what it would be like,” Aziraphale begins to drunkenly muse to the darkened room. Crowley debates feigning sleep, but can’t help himself. 

“What what would be like?” 

Aziraphale could really be talking about anything they had discussed tonight, or anything they had discussed in the last five millennia. The hazard of knowing someone for so long was occasionally forgetting whether or not a conversation had been had last week or last century. Aziraphale is fidgeting, Crowley can feel the brush of fabric against his arm. This bed is so large how can they possibly be touching? 

“...the, ah... _human_ pleasures. You mentioned.” 

It’s a good thing Crowley doesn’t need to breathe, because he’s sure that the hesitant way Aziraphale had admitted such a thing would have made him forget. He doesn’t know what to say so he says nothing, but turns his head to show the angel he is listening. Aziraphale continues to fidget. 

“You said... you said I was a good angel. That I couldn’t possibly understand what you meant about those humans _wanting._ But I have wanted. Before. I’ve never- well, there’s been... kissing. Some touching here and there. I’ve made the effort, as it were, but never, ah- had to use it? I had some concerns about it but it seems as long as I’m not teetering into _lust_ , the Almighty has no real qualms about us celebrating the bodies she gave us. It’s quite something, really. So what you’re doing for that young lady, it’s hardly cruel but yes, you have my apologies for suggesting you might be.... good.”

_It’s not for her, you absolute pillock it’s for you_

Crowley needs more to drink.

“Have you... partaken?” Aziraphale adds innocently. 

_Yes_

Aziraphale knows he has. He must know he has. It’s part of his job sometime, and others it isn’t. Some times it isn’t even sex it’s just hard kisses and desperate touches and rutting against someone in the darkness of an alleyway. Sometimes it’s trying in vain to fill the desperate aching void that burns behind his ribs and makes him feel as though he is Falling all over again. 

“Yeah. I have.” 

Aziraphale hmms quietly and rolls to one side, taking a large segment of the blanket with him. Crowley doesn’t try and take it back. 

“Is it nice?”

Crowley sucks in a sharp breath and thinks of his lovers. Of their hands and their eyes and their mouths on his own. Of the way he had dipped his thumb against the swell of their mouth and drank his fill of their kisses, taken them apart under him and left without saying goodbye. Of how in all his times, he has never shared a bed with them like this because it was too much and too intimate. 

He thinks of the last one. Fair hair and bright eyes and a soft roundness about him. How instead of taking him apart the man had lain Crowley down and _wrecked_ him like he had never felt, until Crowley had almost begged for release. Afterwards, the man had adjusted his hose and fixed his shirt and met Crowley’s eye. And they had both known they were looking for someone else in the arms of each other. 

“S’alright.” 

Crowley doesn’t know who to thank for the fact Aziraphale stops asking questions after that. He falls asleep some time later, murmuring in his sleep ever so softly. Crowley isn’t tired anymore, the bone deep exhaustion has fled him and left a constant stream of questions filtering through his mind. He doesn’t sleep that night. How can he possibly sleep? He lays awake with his eyes on the angel in the dark and doesn’t let himself think of what he would feel like under Crowley’s hands, writhing for more under the press of his mouth and the push of his hips. 

_He’s wondered what it would be like- I could show him_

He banishes the thought because he still, sometimes, feels the flash of burning wings smoulder at the base of his scapula. He remembers the heat and the taste of the sulphur and the force of Grace being torn from his chest and the deep, dark hole it left to gape inside him. He would Fall a thousand times over before he would ever dare to put Aziraphale through the same thing. He slides out of the bed without disturbing his companion and makes his way to the village Aziraphale had mentioned. It doesn’t take long, miraculously. The moon is still bright and Crowley can see the two figures in the distance, having crept from their beds to meet under the stars for reasons they don’t understand. 

The man is plain, as is the young woman. They are sitting together on a stone wall outside the village, a field lousy with unkempt grass and wild growth stretching out ahead of them. He creeps up behind them and tries to reach out the way Aziraphale had described. To _feel_ the love Aziraphale had felt when he looked at them. 

The man reaches out a hand and thumbs at the woman’s chin- her cheek- cups her jaw and pulls her in for a tender kiss. 

Something sharp and uncomfortable burns in his chest, up and under his ribs and spreading through his lungs. He thinks of the sword that Aziraphale gave away; the fire he had awoken to in Mesopotamia after the flood; a bad day with a worse emperor made better by a flustered slip of the tongue; a hand in his own as he was pulled, corporation and essence, out of the way of a falling beam. The relaxation as his head had fallen onto Aziraphale’s shoulder and he hadn’t flinched away.

Until now he had been able to control it. To latch onto this thing that had plagued him since Eden that he couldn’t shake no matter how many humans he buried himself in. But now it was growing brighter and hotter, burning in him in a sweet and painful way that was nothing like Falling but felt so much like it at the same time. 

The couple on the wall are kissing harder- deeper. Their clothes are pulling away and Crowley sees the man press a soft kiss against the woman’s forehead before her head is thrown back and she is gasping and crying out. 

Crowley flees. 

The man wants to marry her, that much had been obvious. He will find the courage come the sunrise, when the light hits the woman’s hair and they are still tangled up with one another. She won’t go to the church. Aziraphale will be happy. He pulls back the coverings on the bed beside the still sleeping angel and slides between them, silent and barely leaving a dent. He sleeps, however fitfully. He awakens before the angel but keeps his eyes closed and his breathing measured. He feels the shift as Aziraphale wakes, then the groan of wine not properly miracled away. Then, he waits with baited breath until he hears the soft intake of breath that signals he has noticed his companion. 

“ _Oh_.” 

Crowley doesn’t move. He feels the weight on the other side disappear and he wants to reach out, say something to make the angel stay and try and fill this new, hot, ever present burn inside his stomach. Instead, he does nothing. Aziraphale leaves, but not before Crowley hears the scratch of ink on parchment. A note. As soon as the angel is gone is scrambling for the table, picking the paper up and turning it in his hands. 

_Thank you._

Crowley fucks his way through half a dozen people before he knows it isn’t working to ease the sting. That whatever flood gate he had opened was in no mood to close. He once again, briefly, considers killing Shakespeare. He slides into the Theatre unnoticed, slithering between the crowds with ease as he watches Romeo and Juliet press palm to palm, and then mouth against mouth. He thinks of how good it had felt to have Aziraphale in the bed beside him, a warm and comforting weight. 

_Give me my sin again_

He hates this bloody play. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The date of the first performance of Romeo and Juliet is unknown, but the first print of it was somewhere around 1597 so I went with that as the general first showings. "The Theatre" was likely the first place it was performed for the public, which was a playhouse just outside of London. Most of the audience would stand on the ground below the stage, but anyone wealthy enough to afford gallery seats would sit above the crowd where they could be seen.


	8. London 1914 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I did this. I did this. This was me."

They haven’t spoken, not _really_ spoken, since that day in St James’ Park. They’ve interacted, for the sake of The Arrangement. They’ve thrown the coin into the air and discussed miracles and temptations and Aziraphale has lost three times which would normally spark a heated debate about _cheating_ even though Crowley does nothing of the sort when it comes to this. Instead, Aziraphale would nod, press his lips together in a firm line and subtly suggest that Crowley take his leave. No wine. No discussions. No opportunity to drape himself obscenely over the couch and lounge while Aziraphale worked on his precious books with careful fingers and rapt attention. 

Crowley has tried to give Aziraphale the space he needs, but there’s nowhere else for him to go now. No one else who could possibly understand what he feels. Crowley is breaking open on the inside, every memory of what he had done burning hot into his memories. _He needs to be handled,_ Hell had said. _Get them to handle him,_ Hell had said. Crowley had slithered his way into the ears of important people, made some casual suggestions that perhaps the heir presumptive could do with being taken down a peg or two. And then suddenly he was dead, and that hadn’t been Crowley’s intention but humans do as they do and he had shrugged it off. And then suddenly it was spiralling out of control and Crowley knows this time, he needn’t fake his involvement. He did this. This was him. 

It’s raining, hard and unforgiving down onto his back, seeping under his collar and flattening his already unkempt hair. He can see the bookshop, the soft glow of light coming from somewhere in the darkness. The “Closed, Call Again Later” sign that Aziraphale had calligraphied with a flourish, hanging on the door. Crowley could open it with the snap of a miracle- even in their worse of arguments, Aziraphale has never banned Crowley from his homes. Instead, he slams his knuckles against the heavy wood and waits only seconds before pounding again, harder and more incessant. 

“We’re closed!” comes the muffled response from inside, no attempt to hide the annoyance. Crowley rests his head on the door and hits it again, with no force. 

“Aziraphale...” he breathes, “Aziraphale please.” 

He hears a shuffle from inside and something flares in his chest, warm and hopeful. The lock on the door clicks and Aziraphale is there, framed in the doorway with the glow of the light behind him, a halo radiating through his soft curls. Crowley doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t consider the consequences. He rests his forehead against the softness of Aziraphale’s chest. 

“Crowley?”

“I did this, I did this, I did this...” he breathes, unable to stop the repetition falling from his lips. There is a hand on his shoulders, guiding him out of the rain. He is being shoved into a sofa. There is a wave of a hand and his clothes are warm and soft, no longer sodden with rain. He remembers, so many years ago, the same gesture. There is a dainty teacup, filled and steaming, pressed into his hand and he goes to deny it, but Aziraphale pulls a bottle of whisky from nowhere and adds a generous pour. Crowley brings it to his mouth. 

“I did this.” 

“Did what, my dear boy?”

There’s no ice to his tone, as though the last fifty odd years never happened and they have picked up where they left off. Calls him ‘dear boy’ like the words have left his lips dozens of times in the last half century even though Crowley knows they haven’t and it has eaten him alive. Aziraphale isn’t beside him on the sofa, instead on his own little chair and too far away for them to touch. There is a sudden, extra warmth and a messy knit of a throw blanket is wrapped around his shoulders, smelling of light and ozone and book binding glue. 

“The Archduke. It was me. I did this.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrow arches and he pours whisky into his own cup of tea, bringing it delicately to his lips before setting it down, tone ever so careful when he finally speaks, “You assassinated him?”

“No. No, but Hell sent me to tempt some people into having him handled. Said he was going to be a problem, they needed him out of power. Thought- thought they’d set up a scandal. Maybe some wrath or some envy, seed some doubts in his following. Was surprised when they killed him, but...”

 _But humans do that, don’t they?_ Caesar, Caligula, the uncountable number of attempts and successes through the monarchy.

“Well, not to be difficult,” Aziraphale begins, and Crowley doesn’t even have the urge to say something sharp tongued in response in the gap Aziraphale leaves, just for him, before starting again, “But why does it bother you? You succeeded in a temptation, and you’re hardly the only one of us to spur such a thing.” 

Aziraphale doesn’t like to talk about the people who have died in the name of the Almighty. Been led to death by him as part of the ineffable plans. Crowley shakes his head and downs the tea, filling it this time with nothing but the whisky. 

“The _war,_ angel. I started this _war_.” 

He’d have prevented the assassination if he had known what a ripple it would cause, how it would bleed fast and far into the rest of the world and spark a fire that couldn’t be suffocated. He’d have been more careful. Been more discreet. Kept a better eye on things. Britain has just declared war on Turkey, there’s war spreading like the bloody plague. Germany and France and Japan, it’s spiralling out of control already, so fast he can already smell the death in the air. He hadn’t been sure, had hoped it could be resolved. But then he had seen her, her long fiery hair somehow even brighter than his own and the slick of her smirk as she blew him a kiss before disappearing around a corner. War had made her home here, she had no intent on leaving until she had drunk her fill. 

Aziraphale tuts and sips from his teacup, procuring a buttery biscuit from thin air to dip into the steaming liquid, “You’re hardly at fault for the war, Crowley.”

“ _Are you not lisssstening to me?”_ he hisses, putting the teacup down with too much force but also willing it not to crack because he knows Aziraphale loves the pattern and the delicate features of this particular set. Aziraphale licks a collection of crumbs from the corner of his mouth. 

“I’ve known you six thousand years, Crowley.” Aziraphale begins, light but firm, “I know what you are capable of and what your intentions are. You may have tempted them to do _something_ but they made the choice to do _this._ The allies made the choices on their own, and the countries after them the same. You didn’t do this, Crowley.” 

“I _did_.”

Aziraphale sets his teacup down on the matching saucer and squares his shoulders, “You did nothing of the sort and I won’t have you saying such things. You’re a demon, yes. But you’re no monster. Six thousand years and I can tell you I know _that much_ for certain. Whatever came after the assassination, and whatever comes after tonight, it will all be the business of the humans. But if you’re going to insist on fighting me, I’ll remind you that it was _you_ who sat across from me and assured me that I was hardly to blame for the church persecuting people throughout history. That just because I performed the miracles to get those people where they were, I had no place in who they became with that power. So either you believed what you said to me, or you lied to make me feel better. This is the same situation.” 

Crowley is trapped. Those words _are_ his and he meant them. But Aziraphale is good and pure and it was different, but he can hardly say so. So he nods. He lets Aziraphale believe he has won. Aziraphale looks satisfied, but only barely. He has known Crowley too long to think he will give up so easily, but he knows how to choose his battles. His cup of tea ripples into wine and Crowley is suddenly aware of how heavy his human limbs are, how his eyelids are drooping without his control. He wants to sleep. Wants to curl up against the warmth of the couch and let this day end. Aziraphale pulls a pillow from the ether, square and firm and encased in a paisley floral slip. Crowley blinks at it. 

“You look a mess, my dear. I could hardly allow you out on the streets at this hour in a state like that. Sleep for a while, I’ll wake you in the morning.”

It is an olive branch, something else that pulls deep from in his memories with a pleasant bloom of warmth. How far they have come. He takes the pillow and shoves it under his head. He realizes, as the familiar surroundings of the bookshop lull him into something resembling calm, that he is a demon and he should be proud of starting a war. Should be sauntering around town, blowing kisses and throwing temptations over his shoulder. He is evil. He is cruel. He isn’t supposed to arrive, dripping wet on an angel’s doorstep to beg for- forgiveness? Absolution? He makes to sit up and Aziraphale’s hand touches his shoulder to coax it gently down. 

“You’re thinking too much, Crowley,” he chides, “I _know_ you’re terribly demonic. But even demons have a limit, no? You and I both happen to like this world, I see no reason in why you would want it to not be in such a disarray. Tonight will hardly affect my opinion of you. You _fiend_.”

It’s better than any perfect vintage of wine to hear the word slip from Aziraphale’s mouth, accompanied by the wry turn of his smile. It blooms warm in his stomach and he buries his face in the pillow to hide the sheer wash of relief he feels. The dim glowing light goes out, but Crowley can see, even through the cut of darkness, that Aziraphale is still in his chair. Legs crossed at the ankle, book open in his hand and resting towards the moonlight so he can see. He isn’t going anywhere. They don’t talk about it. Crowley considers the last time they had slept with one another, in the most honest sense of the word. Of how after, he had told himself he would never let it happen again because the feeling of waking up next to Aziraphale had shadowed him for _years_. 

After the crepe lunch in Paris, Aziraphale had dabbed his mouth with a napkin and suggested, after such a trying day, they both deserved a rest? 

_Yes,_ Crowley had thought, _yes_ _come back with me._

“Perhaps another time, angel. Lots of business to attend to.”

His bed had felt particularly empty that night. 

Aziraphale is watching him expectantly over the top of his book and Crowley curls the blanket in his fist and closes his eyes. 

“Sleep well, Crowley.” 

When Crowley wakes up the next morning, with two extra blankets tucked snugly around him and four additional pillows nestled around his frame, he can’t remember the last time he slept so well. Aziraphale beams from the chair and closes the book with a snap. Crowley stretches and yawns as Aziraphale bustles about the bookshop and he notices, as he sits up and rubs his bleary eyes, that there is a haphazardly folded blanket and pillow hidden just beyond the coffee table, as though hurriedly stashed out of sight. The rug on the floor in front of the couch is slightly rumpled out of place, as though laid on for an extended period of time. 

Aziraphale pops back into the room, jacket in hand.

“Breakfast?” 

They go for crepes.

They don’t talk about it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June of 1914 was the turning point for the start of the First World War, since it led to the declaration of war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, which then led the allies of Austria-Hungary to do the same. This is set in the later months of 1914, since after Britain declared war on Germany for not withdrawing from Belgium in August of 1914 but did not actually declare war on Turkey until November. So assume a late November/early December timeline for this one. 
> 
> /Crowley was responsible for the Christmas Truce don't @ me it's a fact


	9. London 1941 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The consecrated ground... nothing that won't go away in a while."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discussions of injury, though nothing life threatening.  
> *Very brief* mention of torture (none carried out to characters, only mentioned in passing)

Crowley manages to pretend he’s fine until they reach the bookshop. Aziraphale is offering him a nightcap, and Crowley is trying to pretend his feet don’t feel like they’ve been dragged across hot coals and then shoved onto spikes. He smiles. Aziraphale frowns. 

“What’s wrong? That’s your ‘I’m hiding something’ smile.”

Oh. 

Crowley didn’t know he had one of those. He shrugs one shoulder snaps his fingers, letting the door to the Bentley shut as he bids Aziraphale farewell and prepares to drive away. Except the Bentley doesn’t move. Not an inch. 

“Crowley...”

Aziraphale’s voice is so soft and concerned that Crowley almost forgives him for miracling the Bentley into not moving. Almost. There were several amendments made to The Arrangement over the years (no tempting one another, no deliberate sabotage, no messing with the coin toss- _no miracle intervention to the Bentley_ ). He’s prepared to give Aziraphale a good telling off when suddenly Aziraphale is leaning in the driver’s side window and giving Crowley such a Look Of Disappointment that the words die in his throat. 

“Are you injured, dear boy?”

He could say no. Aziraphale might press for more and might badger him until he’s begging for discorporation- but the angel seems different tonight. Has seemed different since Crowley had handed him the bag with the books that he had, at the last minute as everything went up in flames around them, thought to save. Aziraphale loved those damn books like he’d birthed them himself and Crowley wouldn’t be able to cope with watching him mope about it for centuries. He still got weepy some nights, thinking of Alexandria. 

“Yes,” he says quietly, thinking of the white hot burn that was worth every second because Aziraphale wasn’t in trouble with Heaven and hadn’t been discorporated, “The consecrated ground... nothing that won’t go away in a while.” 

‘A while’ is weeks. Crowley knows it because it’s not the first time he’s come up against holy places or items. The Viking raid on a monastery some time in 700- or 800, honestly he didn’t remember, had been one of the worst; his feet had burned for well over a month. But the _stupid_ monks had refused to leave, regardless of the murderous intent of the men literally breaking down their doors. A siege on the monastery was all in a days work for him, but Aziraphale would have been ever so upset if Crowley had let the monks die. So he didn’t. Then there was the time a woman in the peak of English paranoia had caught sight of his eyes and thrown a Bible at him. He had a perfect imprint of the thing for weeks. 

“Come inside, let me see if I can do anything.” 

Crowley remembers the last time he was in there during a war. He’d rather not. 

“Really, angel. I’m going to go back to my flat and maybe sleep for the rest of the century-”

"You certainly will not." 

Crowley blinks. He has known Aziraphale for a long time, and he only needs two hands to count the number of times he has seen Aziraphale "Guardian of the Eastern Gate". That is, technically, his title; but Aziraphale as Crowley has come to know him is someone so different that when he gets this way, with hard eyes and solid shoulders, he can't bring himself to categorize them the same way. Aziraphale “Guardian of the Eastern Gate” was created by the Almighty and given a flaming sword. Aziraphale, as Crowley has known him, was created by Aziraphale, and he gave the flaming sword away. Aziraphale “Guardian of the Eastern Gate”, is not to be trifled with. 

One hot, sticky summer in Babylon, when they were still counting down instead of up; Crowley and Aziraphale had crossed paths entirely by chance, and they had held together a pleasant conversation until a demon had burst through the surface of the ground and promptly tried take Crowley into Hell, presumably for dodging his paperwork. It was, all things told, likely harmless. But only moments after Crowley had felt the slimy grip of demonic hands, there had been a sharp burst of heat and white light, followed by the overpowering scent of ozone. Crowley had dropped to the ground and covered his eyes, only opening them when he heard a firm, bordering on icy, voice from above him. Aziraphale “Guardian of the Eastern Gate”, was standing there. 

“ _Are you alright?”_

Crowley had looked from the puddle of what had once been a demon, to the angel in front of him, and nodded dumbly. As soon as he had done so, the sharp crackle around Aziraphale “Guardian of the Eastern Gate” had dropped and Aziraphale was back to discussing the benefits of eating pears. 

The other encounters with Aziraphale “Guardian of the Eastern Gate” had all gone similarly enough that Crowley is content to not get on his bad side. When he finally nods, Aziraphale returns with a warm smile. Crowley breathes a sigh of relief.

Aziraphale opens the door and offers the hand not gripping the bag of books out, giving it a pointed shake when Crowley is too dumbfounded to take it. Eventually, Crowley lets his own hand slide into Aziraphale’s, letting the angel help him out of the car and into the street, where his feet scream their protests when they feel the weight of his body come down on them. 

“It’s alright, my dear,” Aziraphale says into his ear, “I can carry you.” 

“You will _not_ -”

Crowley is already being hefted up into Aziraphale’s arms and brought through the front door and deposited on the hideous tartan settee. Aziraphale kneels down and very hesitantly begins unlacing the fashionable and highly impractical shoes Crowley had chosen for the occasion. He’d been on business with very important people when he had suddenly, inexplicably _known_ Aziraphale needed help and he had ducked out of the dinner meeting without so much as a goodbye to the high level and very important men he was dining with. He’s well known in this war, hadn’t been able to help it. He wouldn’t call it penance for his fingerprints being all over the last war. It’s just business. He was surprised when the Nazi spy had recognized him, given that he had been trying his best to stay well away from being associated with them. He’s a demon but he has _standards_. They pull away from his feet and he whines, embarrassingly loud but he can’t help it. Aziraphale hushes him, softly and gently before he sighs and places Crowley’s feet on the settee, elevated with a beige cushion. 

“Didn’t break the skin,” he tells Crowley, who grunts in reply, “But the burns are quite bad. You really shouldn’t have-”

“Oh shut up, angel.” 

Aziraphale smiles at him and Crowley is struck with the sudden urge to bury his face in the couch cushions because Aziraphale’s eyes are so earnest that it almost hurts to look at. He’s happy that they’re back on friendly ground again after the disaster that was the end of the 19th century. They had spoken before now, of course. Kept to the terms of The Arrangement, shared necessary information with one another and gone over important points, but it had all been through an icy veil of annoyance. Until that night in 1914, the night they haven’t spoken about since and Crowley is content to behave as though it never happened. After that, the thick tension between them had begun to slowly erode until Crowley had once again found himself on the steps of the bookshop, the feeling of impending war cracking at his back as the Horseman rode her way through the beginnings of disaster, to tell Aziraphale that this one wasn’t him, this one was all the humans. Yes, he was taking credit for it, but this one didn’t have his fingerprints on it the same way the last did. 

“I’ll be right back,” Aziraphale says, arranging the cushions under Crowley’s head, removing his hat and placing it on the coffee table and sending the suit jacket to hang neatly in the cupboard with a snap of his fingers, “Do not under any circumstances move from this chair, do you understand me?” 

There is a hint of Aziraphale “Guardian of the Eastern Gate” in his tone, enough so that Crowley just makes a face but agrees. Aziraphale bustles deeper into the shop and promptly disappears before a heavy door. Crowley can hear the drag of carpet and the strike of a match and he frowns, neck craning to try and see what is going on. The door, barely visible through the impossibly large stacks of books, isn’t one Crowley has noticed before, which means it likely wasn’t actually there until a few minutes ago. Which means whatever Aziraphale is doing in there, he doesn’t want Crowley to see. 

Bit rude, honestly. 

Crowley waits. And waits. He shuffles around on the settee and squishes the cushions here and there. He discards his sunglasses and undoes his tie. He sighs dramatically and kicks his feet a little, hissing when the skin of his feet begins to ache. And then it creeps up his calves and into his thighs, prickling like the skin is stretched too tight. 

He frowns. 

Aziraphale is talking to Heaven. It explains the door that hadn’t existed until suddenly it had, and the uncomfortable stiffness spreading across his body. What could the angel possibly need from Heaven _right this moment_? 

The discomfort fades in a rush, like the sun immediately pouring out through heavy hanging storm clouds and Crowley waits for Aziraphale to come back. The door doesn’t open right away, but when it does, Crowley can’t see inside the room anyway. Aziraphale has a small vial of something in his hands and hope flares in Crowley’s chest before he realises it isn’t holy water that Aziraphale is carrying, but some kind of strange smelling oil. Aziraphale negotiates himself onto the ottoman beside the settee (also tartan, Crowley was going to need to talk some sense into the angel), and smiles. 

“I’ve just spoken with my Head Office, my dear. They were quite unimpressed with the destruction of the church so I made sure to tell them it was you, I’m sure you’ll get a commendation for it. I said the negotiation with the Nazis went well, I didn’t feel they needed to know about the, ah, _double cross._ They’ve said since it all went pear shaped I needn’t worry about the paperwork, which is nice.” 

Crowley smiles at the use of the phrase, remembering how wistfully Aziraphale had spoken his love for pears that day by the pond. He waits for Aziraphale to explain the oil in his hands, pointedly staring between it and the angel until Aziraphale seems to take the hint. 

“Oh! Well, yes, I suppose this requires a little explanation. See, Heaven is quite cross with you right now, what with you taking credit for this war and all. People are starting to get disillusioned with the church these days, so the war isn’t working in their benefit. I was instructed to... locate you, as it were. And,” Aziraphale is struggling for words and Crowley can’t help him because he honestly has no idea where this whole conversation is leading. 

“- well. _Handle you._ ”

“Handle me?”

Aziraphale makes a face. 

Crowley understands. Oh. Six thousand years and Heaven wants him out of the picture _now_? Aziraphale waves a hand and sighs. 

“I must’ve looked shocked when they told me because they asked what the problem would be, you being a demon and all I should be happy to smite you. You’d be ever so pleased with me, I came up with something right on the spot. Said I’d been thwarting you so long I knew all of your moves and styles, that I could practically tell when you were going to be up to something by now and if I had you discorporated, Hell would just send someone else and I’d have to relearn everything all over again. They took it alright and took back the order, but I suggested to them just now that if I was to capture you, maybe I could tempt you, as it were, into doing some good.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley begins patiently, his brow knitted together, “I’m very confused, and my feet quite hurt. So if we could be getting along?”

“Oh of course. My mistake. Apologies, dear boy. I suggested that I could locate you and _persuade_ you, perhaps with the use of some Bibles. Maybe a blessing or two.”

“ _Torture?”_ Crowley interrupts, “You were offering to _torture me_?”

“Honestly, Crowley calm down. I would never do such a thing, you know that. But I suggested quite heavily to them that if I was able to locate you, I could maybe get some information out of you. But that my methods may cause some damage and I’d rather not accidentally discorporate you while doing so.”

Crowley is beginning to understand. The oil in the vial has something...otherworldly... about it. Aziraphale gently pulls the crystalline top from the bottle, hands not trembling in the slightest as he does so. The oil is thick, but still drips with ease over Aziraphale’s palm as he brings it to Crowley’s raw and aching feet. His fingers brush Crowley’s ankle, their eyes meeting and if Crowley needed to breathe he would be holding his breath. The oil doesn’t sizzle or burn and he wets his lips, nodding to give Aziraphale permission to continue. Aziraphale’s hands drift to his feet, gentle stroking the oil along the swell of the heel and up into the arch, giving each individual toe a smear of the liquid. The burning doesn’t stop, but it reduces to a barely noticeable buzz and the sharp heat and throbbing pulls back to something he can easily push out of his mind. 

“What the Hell is that?”

Aziraphale moves to the other foot, working the oil in gentle circles until it has absorbed, “Some variant of holy oil, I believe. Without the holy part in particular. I told them I would need something to keep you calm and in your corporation... insurance, if you will.”

The word hangs in the air between them while Aziraphale replaces the crystal stopper and sets it beside Crowley’s discarded hat, glasses, and tie. 

“You can take that home with you tomorrow. Apply it once a day until the pain is gone. If Heaven ever asks after it, I’ll say a human stole it. Did I ever tell you about the attempted caper someone planned on my bookshop? Oh it was years ago now but let me tell you, I remember like it was yesterday-” 

Aziraphale is off on his rambling tangent and Crowley is only half listening because his feet no longer hurt but something else is ringing through his head. _Tomorrow_ , Crowley notes. Not _tonight. Tomorrow_ as in, you’ll stay here with me until morning. He can’t bring himself to argue, really. He’s just happy Aziraphale is looking at him without pain in his eyes. He lets the angel finish his story, unable to wipe away the lazy smile spreading on his mouth. The settee, for how hideous it is, is quite comfortable. He fits perfectly in the dip between the arm rests and wonders if Aziraphale planned it that way. 

“Anyway, I do feel bad for that young man given that they were his best trousers but honestly, sometimes you need to do what needs to be done.” 

Crowley nods and Aziraphale’s eyes shift from him to the heavy leather bag of books, and back again. Aziraphale opens his mouth and Crowley cuts him off before he can speak because he if sure he knows what Aziraphale is going to say and he won’t have it. 

“If you thank me- I’ll burn them right here and now.” 

Aziraphale looks so horrified that Crowley laughs. Outright, head thrown back _laughs._ Aziraphale’s gaze shifts to somewhere far away for a moment before he returns, fixing a stern look on his face because it’s proper of him before looking to the stretch of Crowley’s legs. Aziraphale lifts them without a word and Crowley raises an eyebrow as Aziraphale nestles himself under them before letting them drape across his lap, miracling a cup of cocoa to the table beside him and producing a book from nowhere. 

“What the blasted Hell do you think you’re doing?” Crowley can’t help but say. They’ve never done this before. Sit close together, sometimes. Get hopelessly drunk and sling across one another for brief moments, occasionally. But this is continued contact instigated while they’re both sober. 

Aziraphale looks down at the book, then at Crowley as though he’s grown an extra two heads, “I’m reading, my dear. Shall I read aloud to you? It’s just poetry, I know you think a lot of it to be dismal tosh but these ones are quite lovely.”

Crowley opens his mouth. Then closes it again. He shifts on the couch, which suddenly feels almost too small and shrugs noncommittally. 

“M’fine. Maybe I’ll sleep. Been a few weeks since I got a good kip, now seems a good a time as any. Just don’t go muttering to yourself and getting blubbering at all the love parts.” 

“I’ll keep to myself, my dear. I’d just like to be here to make sure nothing goes wrong, you never know with these things.” Aziraphale promises, cracking the book where there is a handsome vintage silk bookmark peeking out of the top. Crowley closes his eyes, only to open them moments later to find Aziraphale looking at him. 

“What now?” he tries to sound annoyed, and not as flustered as he truly is. 

Aziraphale hesitates, his hand hovering in the air above Crowley’s knee before it rests there.

“You will fall asleep,” Aziraphale says quietly, “And awake having dreamed of whatever it is you like best.” 

The last thing Crowley sees before he sinks into darkness is a look on Aziraphale’s face he can’t quite place. It looks a lot like the angel is seeing something for the first time, but they’ve known each other so long, that could hardly be it. 

The first thing he sees in the morning is Aziraphale. He is in the same position as when Crowley fell asleep, but his book is now closed on the table beside them and his head is tipped back, eyes closed and a general air of relaxation surrounding him. Crowley watches him sleep for a long while, eyes fixed on the rise and fall of his chest. Automatic and human. He doesn’t know when he drifts back into his own slumber, but he knows he is warm and safe.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one from Crowley's POV because I just can't help myself, but the next three are Aziraphale, if memory serves. Also my dumb ass can't count properly so the chapter count went up but they're already written just waiting for editing.  
> Nothing much in terms of necessary history context here I suppose. Crowley is working with British Intelligence, trying to kick some Nazi ass.


	10. Berlin 1989 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They need to talk about this little relationship they have

They need to talk about this little relationship they have, Aziraphale decides one random Thursday in the late months of 1989. Six thousand years and they've never properly talked about it and that had been fine until the _books_. Until Aziraphale had brushed his fingers against Crowley’s as he handed over the bag of books and Aziraphale had felt something rock down into the depths of his soul and settle in for the evening like Aziraphale when he found a particularly old first edition.  
  
_He likes me..._  
  
Aziraphale had always been good at pretending. Doesn't know where the flaming sword got to; hasn’t the foggiest idea why some of the miracles he wasn’t happy about performing never quite turned out right; has never been spotted by the demon Crowley; has absolutely been doing his best to bend to every whim of Heaven while he is down here.  
  
He isn't deeply, irreversibly, _f_ _ond_ of the demon he will never admit aloud is his best friend.  
  
He has been pointedly ignoring a stir of feelings somewhere inside himself since he had awoken with white wings and his Grace intact in Sodom. It certainly wasn’t friendship, but perhaps it was a mutual understanding. Yes, he decided when he had awoken hungover in Golgotha. A mutual understanding of how hard their jobs can be. Nothing more. Then somehow his resolve had softened and developed into a need to go to Rome when he had no reason to. 

An ever uglier, human, feeling had reared its head at the sight of bites and bruises on a man who is so long dead that Aziraphale almost feels guilty still ever so slightly hating him. The feelings had grown wings and tried to take flight on a warm morning in London when he woke up with Crowley beside him in bed, looking as though there was no other place in the world he belonged and Aziraphale had taken a blade to the downy feathers of the budding emotion because _No, no I mustn’t._

He did, of course, allow himself the occasional deviation in his denial.   
  
_Oh, good Lord._ In the Bastille, as close as he has come to ever saying what he truly wanted. He’d agonized over his slip up for weeks until it became apparent that Crowley had either not noticed, or simply hadn’t cared. The budding sensations of hope had promptly been turned to ash when he had looked down into a tiny slip of paper and seen what amounted to _a world without Crowley_ written on it.  
The _feeling,_ however, had never gone away. He had felt it thrumming in his veins, as strong and as vibrant as ever when Crowley had appeared on his doorstep seeking comfort. But he had resisted the urge to reach out and bury his hand in those red locks of hair because this was _nothing._ This feeling was _nothing._ Aziraphale was a being of love so it was normal to feel this way about everything and everyone, which included demons and it was _nothing._  
  
Aziraphale was good at pretending.  
  
But then Crowley had been hot footing down the aisle of a church and he had saved the books in a miracle that would have been too hard for him to explain to Hell and he was surely punished for. And their fingers were brushing and Crowley was bare foot on his settee with burns shiny and raw and Aziraphale was touching him with delicate hands and wondering what it would be like, perhaps, if he was to kiss him?  
  
And then he was desperately searching for a tartan thermos because he could pull one from the firmament but it wouldn't mean as much. Because if he searched for it and purchased it and filled it with the holy water Crowley wanted maybe when he reached for it he would think of Aziraphale and change his mind.  
  
And Aziraphale knows exactly what it was that spurred him to decide they need to talk about it. Crowley had been here in the bookshop, wine in hand and red hair pulled back in a scruff of a tail, telling Aziraphale he had to pop over to Germany (both of them) for a bit of something and he would be back soon. Aziraphale had blinked and said that _he_ was expected in Germany (both of them) as well. The coin had sailed into the air and Crowley had lost, sending him on his way with an eye roll and a sigh. He had stood, framed in the doorway in the late afternoon sun with one hand on the doorknob as he turned to shoot a soft half smile over his shoulder.  
  
"Don't fret too much without me, darling," he had teased with a flash of a wink and Aziraphale had to drink five cups of tea to calm himself down and he can’t continue like this.  
  
They need to talk about it. And it simply can't wait any longer. Aziraphale doesn't know how he is going to go about it. It's not exactly a conversation he's ever had to have before, despite having taken up with a few humans in his time. He can hardly just go about saying whatever was on his mind, lest it only cause Crowley to panic.  
  
"I'm so sorry dear boy but would it bother you terribly if I loved you?"  
  
It didn't seem quite appropriate.  
  
He knows Crowley feels love. He loves the Bentley so much that Aziraphale secretly loves sliding into the passenger seat because the warm, comforting, radiating love that Crowley feels for his car is worth the potential discorporation. Crowley has a particular attachment to the ducks in Saint James's Park though he will never admit it. Little flashes of fondness sparkle like stars as they throw bread crumbs. He likes good vintage wines and a small selection of human foods though he barely ever eats them, only watches Aziraphale do so. It is muffled, surely. Dampened no doubt by the Fall, dimmed by the sulphur that coated his wings and ate away at his Grace, but Crowley can _love._

Aziraphale just isn’t sure if Crowley can love _him_. They are, after all, on opposite sides. 

That is how he ends up walking through the crisp night in Berlin. Winter is peeking out from the tail end of autumn in teasingly sharp winds and promises of crystalline dew drops. Crowley is staying in a quaint little cottage in West Germany, Aziraphale knows. It was a rule of The Arrangement that they knew where the other was at all times when one of them was doing both deeds, and Crowley had never once dared break it. The door clicks open under his hand and he is surprised. Crowley had no reasons to suspect he would be coming, and he should know better than to leave himself so open to intruders. 

Not that they would win, of course. Aziraphale has seen how Crowley treats intruders at the bookshop, and that isn’t even his home.

“Crowley?” 

The cottage is silent- miraculously so. Aziraphale steps lightly on the floors and removes his hat, and his pale blue scarf, then the heavy weight of his pale woolen coat. He peels back his mittens and sets them down on the counter to dry. The cottage is small enough that he can see from here that a door is cracked, moonlight spilling onto what is clearly an occupied bed. Aziraphale pushes the door with one hand and peers inside.   
  
Crowley doesn't even stir on the bed. Not a twitch, not a rustle. His face is buried in the pillows, arms and legs out in a comfortable sprawl and his customary jacket thrown over the end of the bed. His hair is long again, spilling on the pillows like wine and Aziraphale considers touching one of the perfect curls that rests there. 

_What would they do to you if they knew I loved you?_ He wonders, unable to draw his eyes from Crowley's sleeping face. He knows, of course, what his side does to the angels who fall in love with the humans. He can imagine what they will do to him if they ever find out he has fallen for a demon.  
  
"Crowley?"  
  
Crowley still doesn't move, save for the slight rise and fall of his back with every unnecessary breath. Aziraphale sits down on the edge of the bed and reaches out, barely grazing one knuckle against the skin of Crowley’s forearm.  
  
Crowley sits up so fast that Aziraphale tumbles off the side of the bed with an undignified yelp. Crowley, for the briefest moment, looks terrified. His hands are gripped in the sheets but he is shrinking into himself, a snake pulling back to prepare it's defense. Aziraphale raises his hands.  
  
"Crowley it's only me, dear."  
  
"How did you get in here?" Crowley hisses, looking around the room as though it had personally offended him. Aziraphale frowns.  
  
"The front door unlocked for me. I assumed it was you..."  
  
Aziraphale knows that Crowley uses the same protections he does. The same soft warning of an unwanted presence approaching that circles his bookshop, and anywhere he happens to be staying. If he had been allowed to slip through the door without Crowley noticing, it had meant Aziraphale was _wanted_ here, in this house- in this room. 

Something dangerous curls in his stomach. Something that is certainly not love, something hotter and far more frightening. Crowley has relaxed, but only barely. Aziraphale gets to his feet and returns to the bed, drinking his fill of how Crowley looks when he has awoken. 

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Aziraphale apologizes. Crowley looks up and snarls. 

“I wasn’t scared, angel. I was startled.” 

“Ah, yes. Quite.” Aziraphale replies in the same tone he has heard the elderly women in the tea shop use when telling their husbands _yes, dear_ while not looking up from the crossword.  
  
Crowley gives the blanket a sharp yank and Aziraphale is knocked sideways, though this time onto the bed and not off it. 

“What are you even doing here, I’m the one who lost the bloody coin toss.”

“I...”

The moonlight catches Crowley just so and Aziraphale’s heart sings a melody better than any celestial harmony he has ever heard. This is _love,_ he knows. He was created from this, formed from a bright spark in Her hands and filled with her Love. Crowley is looking at him like he has done for so many years, bright yellow eyes piercing right through into his very being. And then something strikes him, hard and fast and painful. 

_What if this is wrong?_

“Aziraphale? What is it?”

He remembers how peaceful Crowley had looked in his sleep, unafraid of anything and completely at ease. Then the terror in his eyes when he had awoken, expecting a fight. Aziraphale feels the words he has been rehearsing catch in his throat. Gabriel had told him before, many times, that Aziraphale slipped too often into cowardice. Too soft on the humans, too kind to the enemies. Crowley hasn’t shifted his stare yet; his hair is a wreck and he is still blinking the remnants of his sleep from his face. 

Aziraphale’s heart clenches and thinks of what could happen if he says no. He thinks of long nights alone in the bookshop and the end of The Arrangement and the way Crowley will no doubt smile sadly, _pitifully_ at him if he rejects him and things could never be the same again. Because what could the two of them ever even really be? Heaven would hardly welcome Crowley into the host again, not that he would even want that. And _Hell_ , Aziraphale feels a twist and a burn inside him when he thinks of what consequences Crowley would face if Hell ever got wind of this. Ever found out that Crowley was letting an angel love him. They would destroy him.

“Angel? _Aziraphale_.”

His bravery has left him as quickly as it arrived. He has grown selfish here on earth, it seems. Had barely even considered what it could possibly do to Crowley to know about these feelings. Would Hell feel it on him? Would it stick to his skin like fine powdered sugar and leave a mark everywhere he went? Would the Almighty be enraged that Aziraphale, _Her child,_ had so blatantly disobeyed her and seek to destroy the thing that had cornered the affection that should be Hers? Aziraphale has always thought that no form of love could ever be wrong but he has seen things done in the name of the Almighty that were never stopped though the miracles would be hardly more difficult than a whisper. 

_She’s done it before…_ some part of his brain, the dark part that had lingered with him since the Great Flood and had never left, whispers. Aziraphale’s confidence turned hesitation becomes blind panic and he wants to be anywhere but here, anywhere on this damn earth that isn’t right here with Crowley in the moonlight looking like everything Aziraphale has ever wanted but not known he wanted. This, he realizes with a pang of agony, is what the humans write poetry about. The love that _can’t_ happen. The love that lingers just out of your reach but it looks so close you can’t bring yourself to yank your hand away. 

Aziraphale loving Crowley could destroy him just like the holy water he had tried so hard to keep out of his hands. 

Some of Crowley is better than no Crowley at all.

Aziraphale tucks his feelings away in a deep corner of himself and forces a smile on his face. He is here. Crowley is looking at him with worry on his face and Aziraphale tries not to let his heart shatter. 

“I thought… I’d come see Germany,” he finishes lamely, and he sees the quirk of Crowley’s eyebrow that says _I don’t believe you_ but Aziraphale’s bravery has fizzled and died after he came all this way. 

“You came all this way to _see Germany_?” Crowley drawls, and Aziraphale can feel himself flush under the liquid gold stare. 

“Yes. Lovely place. Berlin in particular. Could hardly let you have all the fun...”  
Crowley knows he is lying. Aziraphale has never been very good at lying. Pretending, yes. But lying? Only ever to himself. 

“Right.” Crowley finally says before he curls back under the covers and buries himself in them like a snake in sand, “Well, there’s no business to be had out there at this time of night, tempting _or_ thwarting. Catch a nap and you can explore the city tomorrow.”

Aziraphale hesitates over the single bed for a brief second too long and suddenly there is another, the same size but with less pillows, tucked close beside it. Crowley rolls over and kicks his legs in the sheets.

“You elbow too much. I’m here doing some tempting, I need to not be covered in bruises.” he explains, though he doesn’t meet Aziraphale’s eyes when he says it and Aziraphale wonders if perhaps it was a good thing he hadn’t been able to speak his mind. They’d only shared the bed the once. Crowley must not be interested in repeating the encounter. They’re an angel and a demon. Hereditary enemies. They’ve a temporary understanding that assists them both in their ultimate goals. 

Aziraphale is ever so good at pretending. What was another six thousand years on top of the ones already under his wings?

Aziraphale climbs into his bed and feels, with a soft hum of satisfaction, that Crowley has fitted it with Egyptian cotton sheets and a heavy down duvet. 

“Since you’re here, y _ou’re_ going to the bloody wall tomorrow,” Crowley mumbles, “There’s so much joy over there it’s making me ill.” 

Aziraphale smiles to himself, knowing Crowley is giving him the opportunity to go there and bask in the radiating waves of humanity and love that he’s no doubt been feeling since he got here. 

“I suppose I can do that for you. Wouldn’t want you feeling poorly; perhaps we can go for lunch tomorrow as well? I’m sure whatever it is you’re needed for might take a few days?”

“Mmm, yeah. Few days.” Crowley replies, and Aziraphale wonders if he is imagining hearing a smile. 

They don’t speak until the morning, when the early winter sun hits the windows and Aziraphale pokes the mass of blankets in the bed opposite him and asks Crowley if he would like a cup of tea. 

“Ngk.”

“I’ll take that a yes, dear boy.” 

Aziraphale thinks, selfishly, that perhaps he can spend these few days in Germany pretending things had gone to plan. He will go to lunch with Crowley. They will drink and dine and banter and then, when they return to London, Aziraphale will clamp a lid down on the Feelings so as not to tempt fate. Crowley stumbles out of the bedroom and reaches for the teacup, his hand brushing over Aziraphale’s knuckles like they had over the bag of books that had ruined everything. Aziraphale doesn't think about it.

Their few days in Germany becomes just shy of two weeks when Aziraphale discovers the sheer number of culinary delights the country has created. He hasn’t been here since the war, and during that time the country had hardly been itself. Crowley follows him from restaurant to restaurant; along the footpaths of chilly parks, making jibes and causing minor inconvenience to people. They watch the sun go down on Berlin from the top of the tallest building they can find that isn’t the Berlin Cathedral, which Aziraphale wanders for eight hours before apologizing to Crowley, who has been sitting on the bench outside the entire time. Every night they slink back to their beds, pressed against opposite walls with an entire floor between them. Aziraphale doesn’t always sleep, sometimes finds himself half thinking, half praying that he can divest himself of these ridiculous feelings and they can go back to how things were before.

_But you’ve always loved him at least a little,_ he reminds himself, the feeling of long fingers in his wings tingling through his back, _what exactly will you go back to?_

Aziraphale gets the summons from heaven to return to London for some dabbling in politics and he considers ignoring it, but he knows he can’t. Crowley returns a week after he does, sauntering into the shop with a tiny German flag in his hand that he sticks beside the register. 

They never get around to talking about it. 

Aziraphale thinks maybe it’s best that way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the fairly brief history here is that Crowley and Aziraphale are at the fall of the Berlin Wall, which was a guarded wall that separated East Germany from West Germany until 1989. The "fall" of the wall (1989) and the actual destruction (1991) is what paved the way for the reunification of Germany. Crowley is there sowing foment (he's really not though, let's be real), and Aziraphale's orders were to spread joy and love and happiness.  
> There's a lot of history to the Berlin Wall that I won't get into here, because it's a Big Thing with a lot of backstory for context, but if you've ever got the chance I'd recommend falling down an internet hole about it. 
> 
> The business Aziraphale is called back for is Margaret Thatcher being challenged in her position in leadership. Aziraphale hates politics and shot a few miracles here and there just to keep people from getting out of control with their emotions but did very little else.


	11. The Dowling Estate 2013 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Please, he's a child. How hard can it be?"

The height of summer has settled over the Dowling Estate in a fog of sticky heat that stifled any desire to do anything. Gone were the comfortable, if hot, days where the sun beat down on the crisp green grass and the neat rows of flowers; replaced with a suffocating veil of humidity and skyrocketing temperatures. Aziraphale has given all of the plants under his care a gentle talking to, suggesting that perhaps they keep their heads up despite the weather regardless of whether or not he hand watered them every day. The grass is already growing on a carefully cultivated schedule that meant it only needed cutting once a month, if at all, and it stayed a lovely and rich shade of green. 

Most of the staff at the Dowling Estate did their best to avoid going outside. Given that Aziraphale had taken up the position as the gardener, it was rather his job to be out there. Which is how he ended up unintentionally helping Nanny the Antichrist one unbearably hot Saturday. Apparently, people were starting to talk about how _miraculous_ it was that the garden was in such good condition despite Brother Francis seemingly never tending to it. So here Brother Francis was, under the midday sun, on his knees with a hedge trimmer in hand. 

They've been unofficial godfathers to Warlock Dowling for exactly six months and Aziraphale isn't sure how one tiny being can possess so much energy. Today in the garden he has overheard Warlock yelling for Nanny Ashtoreth to look at him no less than eighty six times. In Brother Francis' humble opinion, very few of the things Warlock wanted her attention for were worth noting. An attempted half cartwheel; a leaf that looked like a taco; a fairly uncoordinated series of dance moves. 

"Nanny!! Nanny are you watching me? Are you watching me Nanny?" has filled the air in the unnecessarily large gardens of the Dowling Estate. Brother Francis peers over the top of the hedge to see Nanny Ashtoreth sitting in the shade of an oak tree, ankles tucked together and her hands in her lap, looking wholly unperturbed by the blazing heat.

"I'm watching you dear." she replied, though honestly with those glasses it could have been a lie. It doesn’t seem to bother Warlock, who attempts another cartwheel that goes as badly as the last one. 

Brother Francis wipes his brow, and the movement catches the eye of Warlock, who crosses the distance between them in no fewer than ten steps. 

"Brother Francis! Brother Francis over here! Look at me!" 

“Hello there, Master Warlock,” Brother Francis says, plastering a smile on his face as Warlock proceeded to attempt a handstand and fall flat on his face. 

This child is going to bring about Armageddon one day. Warlock brushes himself off and bounces on the balls of his feet, pointing to a large black and yellow spider spinning a web between the hedges. Brother Francis is explaining that, no, we don’t listen to Nanny and demand all spiders be banished from creation- we _leave them be_ , when he hears his name.

“Brother Francis.” 

Brother Francis looks up at the address, finding Nanny Ashtoreth only an arms length away. He smiles and lifts the hat from his head and holds it politely to his chest.

“Ms Ashtoreth. Lovely to see you out here today.”

She offers him a soft smile before looking down at Warlock, who is now inspecting the fat, fuzzy rear end of a bumble bee that is hanging out of one of the flowers. 

“Warlock, dear. You know you mustn’t be keeping Brother Francis from his duties. Plants are... finicky. They require a strong hand. And _discipline._ ” 

Aziraphale narrows his eyes and he catches the very Crowley like smirk that flits across Nanny Ashtoreth’s face. Warlock looks up and Aziraphale morphs back into the kind, open face of Brother Francis. Warlock grins and gives the rear end of the bee a very gentle poke.

“I won’t bother him Nanny, I swear. Can’t we all play a game together? Or you can both watch me! I can show you the dance I learned from the television!” 

Brother Francis and Nanny Ashtoreth share a glance. Warlock is already demonstrating several of the moves with great enthusiasm. Nanny sighs. 

“I suppose if he isn’t too busy, perhaps he can sit with us a while, dear.” 

Warlock _beams_ and Brother Francis feels warmth spread through his chest. He likes to think he’s been doing a good job with the boy, countering whatever Crowley can throw at him that Hell is demanding he do. He follows them back towards the larger expanse of grass, away from the flower beds ad hedge rows. Warlock points out every single bug he sees on the way, naming the ones he recognizes and asking the names of the ones he doesn’t. They reach the shade of the trees and Warlock darts back out into the sunshine, eyeing a large blue bird flying above them with great intensity. 

“Brother Francis, I have a question.” 

“ _Don’t_.” the hissed whisper comes from beside him and Brother Francis raises an eyebrow in nanny Ashtoreth’s direction. Behind her dark glasses, he can see the wide yellow eyes staring pointedly at him. 

Brother Francis drops down to one knee and smiles, hearing Warlock giggle at the exposure of his buck teeth. He takes Warlock’s smaller hand in his own and pats it gently. 

“You can ask me whatever you like, young Warlock. It’s important to learn about all manner of things.”

“How do the birds and the bees have sex together?” 

Brother Francis has made an error. 

“...that... is perhaps a question for another time, Master Warlock.” 

“But why?’

“Ah...”

Nanny is snickering. Brother Francis smiles and clears his throat, “Because that is a talk to be hard between a father and his son, and I would never dream of taking such an important talk away from your father.”

Warlock doesn’t look convinced, but his attention is quickly snatched away when a fat cat prowls into his view and he runs after it with reckless abandon. Nanny Ashtoreth arranges her skirts as she sits down, leaning back against the tree but taking care that her tightly pinned curls don’t become squashed by the bark. 

“You’re going to regret this.” she murmurs, no hint of Scotland in her tone. 

“Please. He’s a child. How hard could it be?” 

The one question aside, obviously.

Six hours later, Brother Francis is very rapidly losing his calm exterior. Warlock has asked exactly one hundred and sixty eight questions, not including the multiple variants of ‘but why’ that are tacked on after every answer. He has tried scaling the tree above them no less than six times, despite Brother Francis insisting it is too dangerous. He has terrorized the fat calico cat that lives on kitchen scrap to the point of gaining three claw marks on the back of his hand. Brother Francis has wrestled exactly three rocks out of his hands because Warlock wanted to throw them at people passing by just to see what they would do. There is dirt drying under Warlock’s fingernails, and a large smear of pollen across his cheek.

Nanny Ashtoreth is smirking. 

Brother Francis is going to have words with her later, but right now, he feels _sorry_ for her.

Crowley and Aziraphale officially meet to discuss the progress of their operation exactly twice a month. They take turns selecting the location of their meeting from three predetermined rendezvous points, and then make exactly one phone call three minutes prior to ten am the day of the meeting to share the location. They then swap notes and ideas, with Crowley always having more to talk about than Aziraphale. Hell expected Crowley to be intervening in the life of the antichrist, so it had only made sense for him to take up the position as Nanny and perform all of the duties expected of such a position. Nanny Ashtoreth was awake before sunrise and ready for the day, waking Warlock at exactly half seven for breakfast at eight, where he would sit across the incredibly long table from his mother until his plate was clean. Then, on weekdays, she would sit in on his tutored lessons, making sure the tutors followed the teaching guidelines Mr. Dowling had insisted upon. Then, in the afternoon she would supervise his outdoor activities until dinner time, where she would then make sure he was bathed and tucked into bed by eight thirty precisely. 

Crowley looked _tired_ when they would meet up. And Aziraphale can now properly understand why. Up until this point, his interactions with Warlock had been peppered gently through the days, never more than an hour- two at most- being spent with the boy. Warlock is running from one edge of the garden to the other, rambling at a frightening speed about a number of things Brother Francis can’t keep up with. Warlock’s favourite question seems to be ‘why?’. 

Brother Francis is slowly starting to have a critical meltdown. 

“Warlock? It’s time for dinner.”

_God bless you, my dear woman_

Mrs. Dowling is standing on the edge of the outdoor patio in her sensible heels, wearing her sensible pencil skirt and her perfectly pressed white blouse. Her hair is curled and pinned away from her face and her manicure is fresh. When Warlock runs to her, dirtied and grass stained, she steps back and holds out a hand with a tight smile. 

“Warlock, sweetheart. Best you wash up before anything else, hmm? Will you be joining us, Ms. Ashtoreth?” she calls across the garden, and Brother Francis feels the tightening of Nanny’s shoulders as though a heavy weight was dropped from a height. Brother Francis swipes off his hat and offers Mrs. Dowling a polite nod. 

“Actually ma’am, Ms Ashtoreth has been having a bit of trouble with her timepiece. Asked me have a quick look at it for her.” 

The timepiece in question, a silver chained antique pocket watch, suddenly drops into Nanny Ashtoreth’s pocket for her to remove and hold up apologetically. Mrs. Dowling looks down at Warlock, who is holding up a clump of dirt with a worm writhing in it, and sighs. 

“Well, we will see you after dinner, won’t we?” she says, hopeful.

“Of course, Mrs. Dowling,” Nanny Ashtoreth croons, pocketing the watch again before following Brother Francis back to the garden shed where he kept a majority of the tools. It isn’t until the door has swung closed behind them that Nanny Ashtoreth’s prim and proper exterior drops and Aziraphale can see Crowley again. The demon drops into an overstuffed arm chair and looks around the shed. On the outside, it looks barely big enough to squeeze more than a handful of larger tools, perhaps a work bench and maybe a folding chair. On the inside, however, the area is much larger and contains a rounded table, an ottoman, and the aforementioned arm chair. 

"Are all children that rambunctious or is it just because he's the Anti Christ?" Aziraphale asks tiredly. 

Crowley makes a vague noise in response and Aziraphale nods sagely. He supposes he should make them some tea, but the thought of even having to snap his fingers seems all too much. How has Crowley been doing this six days a week for six months (Nanny Ashtoreth takes Sundays off so she can spend time with the Lord. Aziraphale had choked on his tea when the chef had told him as much. Crowley’s argument is that Ashtoreth, in her interview, never specified which Lord it was she intended to spend time with). Crowley has removed the glasses that shade his eyes and Aziraphale tries to take him in without being too obvious, seeing the dark circles and the crow’s feet, the sagging of Crowley’s shoulders and the tight line of his mouth. 

"His father's supposed to be coming home tomorrow." Crowley rumbles. “Warlock hasn’t stopped talking about it all week.”

Aziraphale has a number of opinions concerning the Dowlings, particular the father. Mrs. Dowling had spent all of last Saturday out in the garden, or as far out into the garden as she ever went. Aziraphale wasn't sure what the purpose of the sprawling and miraculously perfect gardens were of nobody ever took the time to be in them. Instead, Mrs. Dowling preferred to sit out on the patio in the high backed wicker furniture and drink Pimm’s. Multiple glasses of Pimm’s. Aziraphale had found out, through the reliable gossip hub of the estate’s kitchen, that Mr. Dowling had once again extended his stay in America. The father had been home for a total of around ten days in six months, and Aziraphale was concerned on the effect it would have on the child. 

He settles himself onto the beige and chestnut ottoman and sighs. Aziraphale can't remember the last time he had been so tired it ached in his bones and filled his head with cotton. They don’t talk about anything, but the silence that settles easily in the space between them is a comfortable one. Six thousand years of friendship, it’s hardly as though they need something as human as _words_ to know the company kept is pleasurable. The sun is dipping down below the horizon, but the creeping darkness is yet to bring any semblance of cool to the air. Crowley is dozing in the chair, head occasionally snapping upwards when it drops to his chest. 

"Should be getting back to my room, I suppose," Crowley murmurs, his voice lilting into a soft Scottish timbre that makes Aziraphale wonder if he was so exhausted he was forgetting he need not fake it around him, "So bloody far. Warlock is going to want me to read him a story. His mother never does the voices." 

Crowley sounds so resigned at the idea that Aziraphale waves a hand and the clutter in the shed dissolves and is replaced with two single beds. Crowley blinks at them, then squints as though making sure he's really seeing what he thinks he is. 

"Did you do that? Or was that me an’ I didn’t notice?" 

Aziraphale nods, "You look like you could use it. The boy's mother just had a sudden, inspired urge to read to him tonight. With voices." He adds. 

Crowley’s lips quirk at the sides and he drags himself to the bed, dropping face first into the mattress with a soft groan of approval. 

"Remind me why I agreed to be Nanny?" He mumbles. Aziraphale rubs the bridge of his nose. 

"So we can try and stop the apocalypse?" 

"Mmm. Pretty important. Probably worth it in the long run." 

The second bed is the same size as the one Crowley is on, though instead of a navy bedspread it is covered in a simple cream and gold cover. Aziraphale settles himself into it and moans in relief. If the over exuberance of the antichrist hadn’t been enough today, the stifling heat of the summer hasn’t died down despite the hour. 

"I can't remember the last time I was ever this hot." Aziraphale grouches, more to himself than to Crowley. Whatever has gotten into the weather lately is ridiculous on all sides. He had considered wearing _shorts_ the previous day. The thought had terrified him. He’s a being of the Almighty, he should hardly get this _sticky._

"Egypt, probably." Crowley replies after a moment. "Or somewhere south. Were you ever in Mexico?" 

"Once or twice." 

“I liked Mexico...” Crowley says quietly, clearly contemplating his time there. Aziraphale had liked Mexico as well, the people were friendly and the sun, though often on the wrong side of almost too hot, was bright and warm and welcoming.

"Well you've always liked the heat, my dear," Aziraphale replied, "not all of us are equipped for it. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and we’ll get a spot of rain. I do love a charming summer thunderstorm, it reminds me of our time in the south of France. Do you remember?"

The sky darkens without warning, a thick cover of blackened clouds rolling in over the estate as thunder rumbles above them before the heavens open and rain cascades from the sky. The windows, thrown open to try and coax a breeze that didn't exist until this moment, allow the cool petrichor scent to waft into the shed. The scent of lilacs drifts inside shortly after it and Aziraphale knows for a fact there a no lilacs growing in the entirety of this garden. There were, however, lilacs in the south of France. Aziraphale shifts a glance to Crowley, who has his face buried in the pillow and both arms dangling off the bed. 

"You didn't need to do that, Crowley." 

"Thanks for the bed." is all he replies. 

Aziraphale looks over to him barely five minutes later, intending on asking about their plans for influencing the child, and finds him already asleep. 

“Honestly, dear,” he murmurs to himself, pulling a blanket over Crowley’s back to stave off the chill, “You work too hard.” 

It’s not as though it's been a long time since they have done this. Aziraphale still thinks of Germany quite often. Of how his cowardice reared it's head and he has always wondered what could have happened had he just been brave. Aziraphale also still thinks about the night in London, hundreds of years ago, when he had awoken between the same sheets as Crowley. Something had changed between them after that, a slight shift that Aziraphale feels in his chest sometimes when he thinks too hard about it.

So he doesn’t. 

Perhaps, Aziraphale ponders as he let the sound of the rain filter through his mind and drown out the buzzing of exhaustion, the Antichrist would benefit from a series of normal, human days with his family. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Aziraphale wakes the next morning to the sound of rain still pattering on the roof. Nanny Ashtoreth is in his kitchen, buttoned up without a hair out of place, watching him over her glasses. There's an umbrella dripping beside her feet, black and sensible and big enough for three people comfortably. 

"Strangest thing happened this morning when I went to wake Warlock," she begins, and Aziraphale wants to sink down into the mattress and let the floor swallow him whole. 

"Oh?" 

"Mmm. Seems Mrs Dowling didn't just get the urge to read him a story last night. She got an overwhelming urge to give me the week off so she could spend some proper time with her son while her husband is here. Because he _is_ here. Showed up before dawn because he had a sudden urge to take an earlier flight. They said I could use the break. _Working too hard,_ might have been the exact words, now that I consider it.” 

Aziraphale rubs his eyes smiles as innocently as he can muster, “Well, how lovely. It seems that with the rain and all, Brother Francis won’t be needed for the next few days. Hardly the weather for gardening.” 

A streak of lightning flashes through the sky and Nanny Ashtoreth smiles. 

“The bookshop? I’ve got a lovely vintage waiting for us.” 

Nanny snaps her fingers and Aziraphale hears the purr of the Bentley. 

“After you, dear.”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to my 4yo nephew for one day, in lieu of absolutely nothing, asking me how birds and bees have sex with each other. I spilled wine all down my shirt and sent him to talk to his mother.


	12. A Bus Not Going To Oxford/Mayfield 2019 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Would you mind terribly if we just shared?"

The bus driver is going to London, and he doesn’t know why. Aziraphale makes sure the other occupants of the bus- a young blonde woman, a mother of two; a man in a business suit who looks as though the weight of the world is on his shoulders; and a love struck couple sharing soft kisses in the very back seat- get off at their stops before the bus begins its journey. He had taken Crowley’s hand before even sitting down, on the same bench seat, with their thighs touching. Crowley’s hand had moved, as though to rip from his own in fear, but then relaxed. Neither of them have a side any more, and if they were going to die for stopping Armageddon, a little hand holding and close quarters would hardly be a problem. The bus pulls away from the last official stop and Aziraphale glances over at his companion.

“Crowley?”

“Ngk.”

Crowley has his head against the suspiciously dirty window, the bright glow of the bus lights shining off the red of his hair like a fiery halo. Aziraphale sees, perhaps for the first time, how incredibly tired he looks. The day had been hard for Aziraphale, what with the fights and the discorporation, and then inhabiting the lovely woman with the red hair. But Crowley had done much more than that. Had stopped the very movement of time simply because Aziraphale had threatened to never speak to him again. Aziraphale pats his shoulder ever so gently.

“You can rest your head on my shoulder, if you like. Might be more comfortable than that window.” he tries to play it off as nonchalant and he’s sure he is failing. He wants to, quite literally, shoulder some of the weight Crowley is carrying.

Crowley blinks, but leans his head away from the glass and rests perfectly into the crook of Aziraphale’s neck. His hair is soft, the barest tickle of it creeping up behind Aziraphale’s ear. He’s breathing, hot and slow against Aziraphale’s skin and Aziraphale has never in his life been more thankful for the automatic human quirks they were never able to shake. Aziraphale slides his arm gently behind Crowley’s back, letting it come to rest on his opposite hip. His other hand is wrapped tightly around Crowley’s and he isn’t going to think about letting go.

The bus continues to trundle ever so slowly towards London.

Aziraphale should be thinking about the prophecy. About what it is exactly they’re going to do now, how they could possibly get away with this. Agnes Nutter had, so many years ago, seen this very day coming and likely knew it would be avoided. She could have put _that_ in her blasted little book of prophecies. Instead, he is thinking about before Armageddon began. Of the bandstand, and the words he had said. Of rejecting Crowley’s offer to take them both to the stars. Of his words, soft and pointed.

_I forgive you_

“I lied to you today, Crowley,” he says softly. Crowley cracks open one eye to show he is listening and Aziraphale flushes at the intensity of the gaze. They’ve been on the bus for almost an hour now and Crowley hasn’t moved and Aziraphale doesn’t want him to.

“Thought lying was my job?” Crowley replies with the tiniest lilt of a tease that hurts Aziraphale in his core though he knows it to be playful. He thinks of every time he had ever pushed Crowley away in his cowardice, snapped and snarked about their differences when it was now so blatant to him that they were the same.

“At the bandstand, Crowley,” he whispers before his courage can fail him, “And again outside the bookshop. We are friends. We’ve always been friends, really. And I wanted more than anything to go with you when you asked me to. And of course I like you.”

Crowley’s hand squeezes his own, brief and soft but still _there_.

“I know.”

It’s been 6000 years. Of course Crowley knows. But the words of his apology don’t feel like enough when he remembers the look on Crowley’s face when he had been dealt those blows. He turns his cheek to press against the top of Crowley’s head and considers pressing a kiss to the red strands. He stops himself.

“I rather feel I need to explain myself though. 6000 years of Heaven being ridiculous and I still thought I could just- change them... stupid of me.”

The last part comes out softer than he intended. He can’t help the sadness that bleeds through, the _stupid, stupid, angel,_ that rings in his tone. Crowley turns his head, as though nuzzling into the skin.

“Not stupid, angel. They’re meant to be the good guys and all. Besides... you’re built to have faith. It’s a shame it had to be in them.”

They don’t talk about Grace. About how Crowley can forget and push away because his was ripped from his chest and he doesn’t have the low, simmering yearn of familial obligation yanking him aside like Aziraphale does. Aziraphale doesn’t _want_ to believe in them. Hasn’t _wanted_ to for some time but there is always that small part of him he can’t let go of that whispers _they are part of you._ But that part of him seems to have gone silent, replaced by something new and burning- white hot and _better._

“Well then if we’re on our own side now, I guess I shall place my faith in you, my dear.”

He worries it might be too much, but Crowley doesn’t recoil. Only presses the coldness of his forehead to the warm skin on Aziraphale’s neck and smiles.

“You’re forgiven.” Crowley says, in the same pointed tone Aziraphale had used on him in the streets and Aziraphale’s lingering doubts are sucked from his chest. Crowley forgives him. They can put this behind them.

They can start fresh and new.

And better.

The bus pulls to a halt outside Crowley’s flat and Aziraphale thinks, for a moment of brief terror, that Crowley may have changed his mind because they didn’t really talk about it after getting on the bus. Instead, Crowley lifts his head from the slope of his shoulder, nose brushing ever so gently against the line of his throat, and rises to his feet without letting go of Aziraphale’s hand. He waves at the bus driver, who is still staring dazedly out the window. Aziraphale considers what he could do for him before he feels the gentle ripple of a miracle. The man will arrive home safe. He will be getting a promotion and a paid vacation for his family. There will be no trouble for the detour because nobody will notice it. As far as the bus driver is concerned, he has been on his usual route this entire time. Aziraphale spares Crowley a glance and doesn’t bother to tamp down his adoration anymore.

“Are you staying?” Crowley asks softly.

“Yes.”

Aziraphale doesn’t think he has said anything so resolutely in his entire life.

He hasn’t spent much time thinking about what Crowley’s flat would look like. Not really. The clean cut minimalism seems right, somehow. There are several items scattered around that he makes a note to ask about, but he won’t do it tonight, even though curiosity is burning in his gut in regards to one of the more... artistic statues Crowley has laying around.

“There’s wine. And whisky. Probably some tea if you have a rummage,” Crowley says, voice flat and dull and so full of weight that Aziraphale aches for him, “I know you don’t sleep much, but I- I _need_ -” he trails off.

Aziraphale doesn’t make a move to the kitchen.

“Actually, it’s been rather a long day for me as well. I was considering sleeping on everything, as the humans say.”

Crowley nods absently, “My bedroom is down the hall on the left. I’ll miracle you a bed out here, or make up a new room. Can’t be hard." Crowley offers tiredly, hand already raised in a half snap that Aziraphale reaches for to stop before it can begin.

"Would you mind terribly if we just... shared? I don't much feel like being alone right now, if it's all the same to you." 

Hardly the first time they had shared sleeping arrangements, the though last time they had lay between the same sheets there had been a lot of wine involved. Tonight, however, Aziraphale had no plans on indulging. The gravity of what they had done was prickling under his skin; the shock of being discorporated, possessing a human body, and then abruptly shoved back into his previous corporation had added a weight to his shoulders and a scratch of tiredness to his eyes. Crowley pushes open the door to the bedroom. 

"Make yourself at home."

Crowley's bed is so extravagantly large that they could both sleep spread eagle and still not even so much as brush their fingertips. The sheets are a crisp charcoal grey and the duvet is a shade of black that seems to swallow any light that touches it. There is also a small mountain of pillows heaped against the headboard, various shapes and sizes all in matching black covers that are embroidered with small silver snakes. Aziraphale hears a snap of fingers and Crowley is wearing silk pajamas in a shade of navy that makes Aziraphale do a double take. He would not admit aloud that he had considered what the demons preferred nighttime attire would be, and it was most certainly not that. He thinks back to a conversation, the date slipping through his fingers like fog. Shared drinks. Laughter. Aziraphale tutting and pursing his lips, asking Crowley how he could sleep at night with the deeds he undertook. Crowley smirking around a wine glass with lips the colour of dark cherries. _Naked on silk sheets, angel_. He had replied. 

It was an image Aziraphale had pondered quite often. 

Crowley looks so world weary that Aziraphale doesn't hesitate in snapping his fingers to replace his standard clothing for a luscious pair of silk pajamas of his own, with a fetching pattern of tartan, completed with a gold stitching of wings along the hems. It has the desired effect almost immediately when Crowley’s lips curl into a smile so soft it aches. Aziraphale gestures to the left side of the bed.

"Still your preference?" He asks. 

Crowley hesitates before he nods, as though he hadn't expected Aziraphale to remember. The right side of the bed turns down under Aziraphale's fingers, the sheets and duvet impossibly soft and warm. Crowley hardly makes a dent in the mattress, but he sprawls with the same grace Aziraphale remembers. The light winks out as soon as Aziraphale is comfortable, laying on his side with one arm tucked under the soft pillow, the other resting in the chasm of space between them. This could very well be their last night in the world, Armageddon or no. Their former respective sides may be temporarily licking wounds but Aziraphale has no doubt they will strike come the morning. An effort to regain control. To contain the embarrassment and make an example of the traitors.

"You'll Fall," Crowley whispers into the darkness. Aziraphale feels something uncomfortable slip down into his stomach and he bushes his hands in the softness of the duvet. He has never told Crowley The Truth, as it were, about Heaven and punishment. Now seems like the best time, considering it may be his only chance. 

"Ah. Well that's not likely, actually. I never mentioned it because it seemed rather improper of me when considering your history. But I'm not sure if you noticed, what with being on earth most of the time. But ever since the first of the Fallen... there's actually not been any others."

"What?" Crowley’s voice is soft and confused, with a hundred questions cradled in the dip of his tongue in just the single word. 

"I believe Heaven considers them an embarrassment, though they'd never admit it. Some of their own deciding that the Morningstar was a better leader than Her and taking matters into their own hands. Its talked about, of course. Have doubt or become Faithless and have your Grace ripped from you as you plummet into the Pit. But there has been no others, Crowley. Not a one. And look at Me, Crowley. I'm... I'm hardly a good angel. And yet my wings are pure as the day She created me. I've never been privy to the details, but it seems as though the preferred punishment for deviation is, ah.. Well..." 

Crowley is watching him so intently it feels as though his skin is burning. Aziraphale has worried the blanket around his fist and he smiles weakly. 

"Hellfire. I've heard rumours. After all that business with the Nephilim I heard most of the responsible angels were burned for their crimes, save for the ones imprisoned under the Earth. I feel that I will be subject to it as well."

"They can't get it," Crowley says firmly, "angels can't touch hellfire how would they even get it?" 

Aziraphale wishes there was some kind of light in here. He wants to see Crowley’s face, more than his eyes. He wants to see his face and cup it in his palms and- 

"Given the events of the past several days I'm inclined to believe there is some... overlap in communications between Heaven and Hell." 

"Overlap." Crowley echoes darkly. "You mean to say you don't believe we were the only two people..."

He's searching for the word, Aziraphale can tell. He remembers years ago using fraternizing and knowing it was wrong. Knowing it was so much more.

"I'm quite certain we weren't the only friends on opposite sides. Given that information, I'm of the mind your punishment may be intended to be Holy Water." he supplies. 

He doesn't want to dwell on the image. He has considered it since the day Crowley pressed the slip of paper into his hands while rambling about ducks. The image of Crowley contorted in pain and screaming in agony as his very being is erased from existence has burned into a dark place in his chest. 

Crowley hasn't said anything. As though he has known his punishment would come in this form.

"I would take your place if I could," Crowley says, tired but words weighted with sincerity. "S'pose that's not that impressive since Hellfire wouldn't do anything to me anyways. But I would."

"And I would take yours, Crowley." Aziraphale replies, trying to hold back the singular bead of a tear that he can feel welling in the corner of his eyes. 

Crowley has tensed in the bed, the sudden movement rippling across the sheets to where Aziraphale is still resting, reaching out for a hand that hasn't yet come to him. Crowley’s eyes have gone wide and yellow and the room is suddenly lit with a glow from nowhere. 

"What did that prophecy say, angel?" 

Aziraphale repeats it from memory, though the charred slip of paper is resting only a hand reach away on the bedside table. Crowley is sitting up in the bed, squinting at Aziraphale's face. 

"I could be you. I've known you long enough, could hardly be difficult." 

" _Be_ _m_ _e_ , dear?" 

Aziraphale doesn't understand yet. He waits for the click of realisation but it doesn't come. Crowley knows, though. Can tell his friend is not quite where he is just yet. 

"The prophecy landed in your hands, of everywhere else it could go. That probably means it was always intended for you. Agnes knew you'd be executed by hellfire. She's telling you to chose a different face. My face." 

Aziraphale does like Crowley’s face. But it still doesn't explain how that would help them any. Crowley cradles Aziraphale jaw, encouraging it this way and that before pulling away and it takes Aziraphale more strength than he could fathom to not chase the cool touch of his grip. 

"They're going to come for _y_ _ou_ , but you've had this corporation since the beginning. Do you really think they'll be paying any attention to who is actually inside it? By the time they got to us on the air base you had your body back, they've no clue an angel can possess someone else. So you take my corporation and I take yours. They'll throw me into the hellfire and nothing will happen." 

Crowley hesitates and pain shines through his eyes. 

"You'd... you'd probably be taken to hell by my lot. But the holy water wouldn't do anything to you. No, no nevermind, you don't need to inhabit me, Aziraphale. We can work out something else-" 

"Don't be absurd, this plan is perfect." 

Aziraphale is already thinking. Its never been done, but until today no angel had ever possessed a human host before. The bodies they inhabit are, at the end of the day, only suits of flesh and bone. Its the entity inside, the burning hot unknowable figures of themselves that create the angel and the demon. To trade faces would be simply to change clothing, in theory. He doesn't much enjoy the idea of Crowley being in heaven, not because he doesn't belong there but because there's no telling what kind of horrible memories it would force him to face. But Aziraphale would walk through hell and back, barefoot and bleeding, if it meant Crowley would be safe. Agnes Nutter was never wrong. Not once. Not ever. 

"How?" 

"I dunno." Crowley answers, though not undefeated by it, "I need to think. Lemme think. I need... I need sleep." 

With the light in the room it is painfully obvious that Crowley’s corporation is a wreck. His pale skin is stretched too tight over the bones, dark circles of exhaustion ringed around his eyes. He held the Bentley together by sheer force of will. Stopped time itself while Satan was bursting through asphalt because Aziraphale threatened to end their friendship. They can sleep. They have a plan. Tomorrow will dawn and they will have a fighting chance. 

Aziraphale dulls the light with a snap of his fingers but selfishly leaves the faintest of moonglow to slip through the window. It illuminates Crowley’s silhouette in the bed, red hair spilling on the pillows and across his forehead and Aziraphale remembers how close he had been in Germany. How painfully, achingly close. 

"What do you suppose they'll think?" Aziraphale can't help but ask. 

"They won't know what to think because it's never happened before. A demon has no reason to be immune to Holy Water, demons don't rise. And hellfire is the only thing I know of that even kills angels properly; I doubt they've ever had an angel who wasn't fallen be immune to it. Maybe they'll assume we've gone native. Too much grey area for it to affect us the same way it does them." 

"Like we've created a side of our own?" Aziraphale suggests after a beat, his hand sliding across the far too large gap between them. He waits, hand poised and brushing lightly against the skin of Crowley's wrist. If this is their last night, he wants to feel Crowley's hand on his own, but he can’t dare bring himself to make the final move. Crowley tangles their hands together and Aziraphale's heart swells. The grip is firm and comforting, Crowley's impossibly long fingers cool to the touch and encircling his own like a promise. 

"Yeah, angel. A side of our own." 

Crowley needs sleep, Aziraphale knows. He needs it as well. But like a parched man led to water, he has tasted one sip and can't bring himself to stop. He shifts in the bed, watches as Crowley's eye slits open in the dark to regard him curiously. Aziraphale remembers he was created to guard Eden and remembers how to be brave. 

"Would you mind if I tried something? I've been learning an awful lot lately. Particularly today, what with inhabiting that Madam Tracy." Aziraphale asks, almost too scared to speak in case it breaks whatever tender, fragile thing is lingering between them. Crowley tilts his head but doesn't loosen the grip of their fingers. 

"Like what?" 

Aziraphale clears his throat, though he doesn't need to. It provides him with a moment to collect both his thoughts and his bravery. 

"I believe the humans call it 'spooning'. Delightful phrase. Its similar to-" 

"I know what it is." Crowley interrupts and Aziraphale doesn't consider the ever so brief flicker inside him that wants to know who and when. He waits for rejection, but is surprised when Crowley slides easily across the sheets and turns, pressing the hard line of his back against the soft pad of Aziraphale's front. _The little spoon_ , Aziraphale's mind supplies helpfully. He slings one arm around Crowley's waist and holds it there. 

It's the first time, in all the times they've fallen asleep together, that they fully embrace. The humans do it often, Aziraphale knows. Cuddling. It is, as most human things are, quite pleasant. Their fingers are entwined and their bodies touch at the ankle and thigh, the soft roundness of Aziraphale stomach against the bony ribs of Crowley. 

Crowley hair still smells ever so slightly of burning leather and ash. Aziraphale drags a hand through it, carding the scent away with a wash of a miracle until he can only smell burned sugar and evergreen. 

"Crowley?" 

"Mmm?" 

"...you're my best friend." 

He knows, of course, that Crowley was talking about him in the pub. Crowley has human acquaintances, human contacts, humans who circle around his life but are never permitted to enter. Aziraphale has known they are friends for a long time now, but has been too cowardly to admit it. He skims his palm down the slope of Crowley's arm and allows it to come to rest atop his hand. Crowley squeezes once, gently. 

When Aziraphale sleeps, wrapped tightly around Crowley, he dreams. Not of fire, or of Heaven. Not Armageddon or the future. He dreams of the two of them, their shared moments in time. The side of their own. 


	13. Crowley's Flat 2019 AD

Crowley is doing an excellent job at pretending he hasn’t noticed yet.

He had, obviously, noticed the very first time Aziraphale had done it. The bed, unlike a lot of things in Crowley’s life, like the very flat they were standing in, had been a purchase. As easy as it would have been for him to simply miracle a mattress from the ether, Crowley knew it wouldn’t be the same. So instead, he had made a number of phone calls and specific requests and a lot of ‘yes, I know how large that is’ comments to concerned company men; and then had the bed frame and mattress made specifically for him and then paid a large amount of cash for it. 

And now it is _shrinking_. 

He had noticed the very first day when he had rolled sideways and almost launched off the bed entirely. Aziraphale, who was reading beside him in his ridiculous tartan pajamas, had blinked over the top of his book and asked if he was okay. Crowley had said yes, and then settled back into the mattress with a narrow eyed stare. Since then, every few days, the bed frame and mattress would shrink by a practically minuscule amount. Hardly noticeable to anyone who didn’t take careful stock of their belongings the way Crowley did. 

And he knows it’s Aziraphale doing it. 

After that night before the body switch, when they had dined at the Ritz and walked back to the bookshop with a new appreciation for the earth, they had begun a semi regular habit of sleeping together. This wasn’t like their history of sleeping together, where certain circumstances aligned for the two of them to share a room, or a bed, or a couch. No. This was intentionally climbing into the warmth and softness of Crowley’s large, custom made mattress, and laying together until one or both of them fell asleep. Aziraphale still doesn’t indulge in actual sleep as much as Crowley does, but every night in this new routine he slips into his pajamas and nestles himself into the right side of the bed. Crowley, who still finds exhaustion from the failed Armageddon sometimes straining his corporation, has taken to sleeping every night. 

The new routine had been Aziraphale’s idea. Their day at the Ritz had ended, and Aziraphale was settled comfortably back in his restored bookshop with his vintage wines and his first editions and Crowley had prepared to take his leave only to feel a hand on his shoulder. 

“Ah, would it be a terrible trouble if I made a request?”

Aziraphale explained, with the kind of put togetherness that only came from a mentally prepared speech, that he wasn’t sure about spending the night alone just yet and would it be awfully horrible of him to suggest that perhaps they spend the night together again? Crowley had almost fallen over himself in his haste to agree, and Aziraphale had once again, shyly, suggested they share the bed. No sense wasting a miracle for one night. 

One night had become two, then four. Then a week. Then three. They traded off on who did the asking, Crowley sometimes throwing a casual ‘you can stay if you’d like, I don’t feel like sobering up to drive the Bentley’ over his shoulder; Aziraphale wringing his hands and suggesting that he keep a watchful eye out in case Heaven or Hell decided to kick in the door. Aziraphale spends the days in his bookshop, but he spends his nights in Crowley’s flat. 

Now, there are small touches of Aziraphale dotted around the flat and it starts with the fact that Crowley has lost all respect from his plants. They bloom as soon as Aziraphale walks by, their leaves thicken and stretch when he dotes on them They scarcely tremble when he walks into the room any more because Aziraphale coos and adores and spoils them to their roots. There is a tartan teapot on Crowley’s counter. An angel winged mug tucked in the cupboard. A knitted throw draped over the back of the couch. 

And there is currently an angel sitting beside him in bed, propped up on the pillows with a book in his lap and Crowley’s bed is _shrinking_. 

Crowley wants so desperately to ask Aziraphale what the hell he is doing, but he also knows that every night he is able to roll closer to him, to stretch out and have the fingers brush or wake up and find Aziraphale has shifted all the way to his side of the bed and is now almost nose to nose with him. 

_You go too fast for me, Crowley_ has circled in his head for years now, popping up at all ridiculous hours like The Best of Queen when he’s trying to listen to something else. He wants to ask Aziraphale what it means- the bed sharing, the spooning, the whisper every night when Aziraphale thinks Crowley is asleep of ‘you’re my best friend’. But he won’t. Not yet. He won’t risk going to too fast.

Aziraphale has apparently decided he will be sleeping tonight, pressing a bookmark into the pages of his novel and letting it rest on the bedside table. He reaches over and clicks off the light on his side before arranging the pillows the way he likes before scooting himself down into the covers with a ridiculous wiggle. Crowley shuts off his own light and brings the blankets to his chest, waiting with baited breath that hopefully tonight-

“Crowley?”

_Yes._

Aziraphale had been quite taken with the human concept of spooning. He had asked Crowley, that second night, if he had minded at all, if they could do it again. These days, he doesn’t even have to ask, he just says Crowley’s name in that soft, hopeful tone and Crowley knows. Crowley sprawls one arm out and Aziraphale moves closer, insinuating himself up against Crowley’s front and relaxing almost instantly. Crowley slings his arm across Aziraphale’s hips and closes his eyes. He waits. He lets his breaths become deeper and level, takes care to relax his arm and loll his head just so. Aziraphale is a creature of habit, and as soon as he believes Crowley is asleep, he sighs softly and whispers into the darkness. 

“You’re my best friend.”

Crowley only ever sleeps once he hears Aziraphale speak those words. Had caught them once, entirely by chance when the sharp sensation of falling had gripped his stupid human corporation and he had jerked himself awake in time to hear it. Aziraphale had frozen as though caught, and Crowley had stilled like prey under the eyes of a predator and feigned sleep. The next night, he had waited. And every night since then. 

But tonight is different, he decides suddenly, something igniting within his chest that he can’t tamp out. He’s been trying so hard not to ask but he can’t not anymore. Armageddon is over. They have no sides. He needs to know.

“Are you going to tell me why you’ve been shrinking my mattress?”

Aziraphale stiffens and Crowley wants to take the words back out of the air because suddenly the warmth across his chest is gone and Aziraphale has moved away, putting only perhaps an arms length between them but it is too far and the cold seeps into Crowley’s sleepwear. Crowley switches the light on with a lazy snap of his fingers and Aziraphale huffs before he forces it back into darkness. 

“Angel.” 

“Crowley.” 

The silence stretches between them for a beat and it feels like an eternity. Crowley had seen Aziraphale’s face in their brief moment when the light had spilled through the room; eyes wide and cheeks pink and embarrassed. 

“M’not mad about it,” he assures him quietly, “Just wondering.” 

Aziraphale makes a soft, strangled noise and Crowley wants to reach out and touch him but he keeps his hands fisted in the duvet to stop himself. 

“Are you really wondering, Crowley? Or do you think perhaps you already know?” 

Crowley hasn’t dared let himself hope until this very moment, with the way Aziraphale’s tone hints at something more that neither of them have ever spoken about before. 

“It’s always better to hear it from the source,” he rasps, “Best we not assume and all.” 

Aziraphale makes another noise like a wounded bird and Crowley waits.

“I like being close to you, Crowley. I like it when we are together and this blasted bed is like an ocean between us. It’s comfortable, of course, but hardly conductive to... ”

“To?” Crowley coaxes. Six thousand years of teetering on the edge of never saying it, never daring to allow themselves to breathe the words lest their be struck down for it. 

“...to _intimacy_. I’d like to be intimate with you, Crowley. Does that- does that answer satisfy you?”

Aziraphale’s tone has an edge of defensiveness, as though he is expecting to be shoved away and told to leave and never return. Crowley reaches out and grabs Aziraphale’s hand, letting their fingers slide between one another and Crowley has known for a long time that they fit perfectly together like this. 

“You could have asked, you know. Like you do for the holding.” 

The spooning. Aziraphale loved that word. Aziraphale is fidgeting with the sheets, his head bowed like he can’t bring himself to look Crowley in the eyes. 

“I thought you weren’t interested. That night after Armageddon when we woke up together, you were looking at me so differently. I thought maybe things had changed between us. And then you did nothing. I thought perhaps you had changed your mind.” Aziraphale admits and Crowley swallows his near hysterical burst of laughter because how can someone so smart be so stupid?

“Aziraphale. I was waiting for you. I didn’t want to go to fast for you.” 

The words strike him, Crowley sees it in the dark with the way his brow creases and his lips part. Aziraphale looks like he wants to speak and Crowley waits, like he has always waited. A warm hand comes to his cheek, hesitating before it strokes gently across the cool skin. 

“Might I kiss you, Crowley?” 

“Yes.”

_finally_

The first kiss is barely a kiss, really. A brush of bare lips together, the lightest of feather touches. Aziraphale presses his forehead to Crowley’s and cups the sharp angle of his jaw. He moves, bringing the warmth of his mouth to Crowley’s forehead, then to his temples. He peppers a kiss to either cheek and then the very tip of his nose before he kisses him again. There is more pressure to this kiss, more insistence and desire. Crowley thumbs the swell of Aziraphale’s bottom lip and coaxes it open, letting the kiss deepen just so he can hear the soft crack of a moan that begins in Aziraphale’s throat before it is swallowed by the kiss. 

Aziraphale slides one hand up through Crowley’s hair, breaking the kiss to murmur something that sounds like soft before their lips meet again, harder and needier. 

Aziraphale palms a hand to Crowley’s shoulder and coaxes him down flat, hovering over him and kissing him so deeply that Crowley feels the dam inside himself break. He has spent millennia shoving every possible flicker of love he felt into a dark corner and slamming the lid on it; burying it deep inside himself so it doesn’t hurt him any more. That night in London, after Romeo and Juliet, he had almost burned up from the inside just thinking of how badly he wanted Aziraphale to want him. Every hand brush that sparked on his fingers, every catch of light on Aziraphale’s hair that sucked his breath from his lungs. Watching Aziraphale suck drippings from his fingers in a damp tent in Wessex with no idea he was causing an ache in Crowley’s chest. The ridiculous magic tricks that secretly made him soft and warm at Aziraphale’s enthusiasm. The angel had been haunting him for so long there was more memories than Crowley could count but he knew them all, deep in his chest. All circling back to the first one. The first moment. 

_I gave it away!_

_You what?_

Aziraphale breaks the kiss with a soft, startled cry and Crowley knows, with a sinking feeling of horror, that he can feel it. He can feel the love that Crowley can’t suffocate anymore and he’s looking at Crowley with wide eyes that are so earnest he wants to bury himself in the blankets. 

“Since Eden? Since _Eden_?” Aziraphale rasps, one hand stroking down Crowley’s cheek while the other runs a thumb along his reddened lips. 

“I’m sorry.” is all he can manage, broken and repentant and hoping Aziraphale will forgive him for it. Since Eden, like a hopeless wreck of a thing. 

“No, _**no**_ , Crowley. I-”

Aziraphale shakes his head, eyes searching all over Crowley’s face before he brings his mouth down again and Crowley is drowning. He feels something deep in his bones, deeper than the corporation he is in and completely other wordly. It ripples through his veins, unhindered and filling every part of him he didn’t know was empty. Aziraphale loves him. Not angelic love, the love of all creatures great and small, the love of everything touched or created by the Almighty. He loves him with every part of his true form in waves of sharp, radiating, all consuming ache. He wrenches his mouth away from Aziraphale’s and stares unashamedly, his mouth trying to finds words to explain what it was he had just felt, how to categorize the sensation of completeness. 

He finds himself, for the first time in six thousand years, thinking ‘ _ineffable_ ’ might not be such a bad word after all. 

Aziraphale is worrying his lip and Crowley reaches out, grabs his hand to anchor himself or Aziraphale, he doesn’t know anymore.

“When?”

He needs to know. He needs it like the humans need air because he will never be able to stop thinking about it if he doesn’t know. Aziraphale’s smile waves and he laughs.

“When did I fall for you? Or when did I realize I had? Or when did I realize there was a chance you could actually love me back? Or,” his hand smooths down Crowley’s side with a gentle touch Crowley has only seen used on precious first editions, “Or when did I decide I didn’t have a damn what the universe would do to me for acting on it?”

He wants to know them all, and he tells Aziraphale so. He hears of a feeling in Mesopotamia that Aziraphale couldn’t grip quite tightly enough. Of a sudden, sharp stab to his heart in Rome when Crowley had turned with a smirk on his face at Aziraphale’s slip of the tongue. He hears about a slow creep towards the edge of a cliff, tiny increments over thousands of years for fear of pain and punishment.

And then a free fall, the morning he had awoken to find a man and woman engaged to be married with all of the happiness in the world stretched out before them because they would be together. Aziraphale had fallen headlong in love the same night Crowley had felt his love for Aziraphale catch fire in his chest.

“Did you not know I loved you back?” he whispers. Aziraphale smiles sadly.

“I thought perhaps I was imprinting my own feelings onto you. Like an echo of myself bouncing back at me. It wasn’t until the books, Crowley. You thought about my books.”

Crowley hides his smile in Aziraphale’s shoulder because of course it was those bloody books. Aziraphale hand slips through his hair and Crowley feels a kiss pressed hard against his forehead.

“And from the moment I saw you in that bar, drinking yourself into oblivion because you thought you had lost me, I stopped giving a damn what anyone would do to me for loving you.”

Crowley kisses him. They kiss for a long time. Perhaps it’s hours, Crowley doesn’t know. All he knows is the feeling of Aziraphale’s mouth and the softness of his skin; the ways he can dip his kisses to make Aziraphale makes all kinds of sounds Crowley wants to hear again and again. They don’t do more than kiss, though Crowley can feel the effort Aziraphale has made pressing against his thigh and he knows Aziraphale can feel his. Tonight is for kisses. For mapping every sigh and breath and finally drinking in the feeling of love after six thousand years like a parched man.

“I love you.”

They aren’t words that need to be said aloud, really. Aziraphale can feel how much he loves him, and Aziraphale had poured his love for Crowley into him and the residual energy of it is still humming through his veins but he likes the taste of the words on his tongue.

“I love you,” is Aziraphale quiet response and Crowley’s heart sings.

They fall asleep still wrapped around one another, foreheads touching and hands clasped tightly together. The start of something different.

Crowley dreams of falling.

The far better kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes the chapter count went up to 14, because I can never just be happy and content with things.   
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	14. Crowley's Flat 2019 AD, Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you awake, my dear?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: sex  
> Nothing worth upping the rating to E but enough detail for the M worthy rating, I personally feel.

Aziraphale sees red when he wakes.

Crowley is asleep on his chest, arm thrown around him and his hair is a blanket of curls over Aziraphale’s eyes. It won’t stay this long, Crowley is particularly attached to the short style of the times, but he had manifested it just for last night.

Aziraphale remembers how good it had looked wrapped around his fist as he grabbed and pulled and made Crowley make all kinds of fabulous sounds. He smiles as he brushes the sheet of red away. They are both still naked, the black of the silk sheets a beautiful contrast on Crowley’s pale skin, the twist of the fabric around his body allowing Aziraphale a glimpse of bruised hand prints wrapped around the sharp jut of his hips. Aziraphale remembers gripping tighter, tighter as Crowley whimpered for the contact and the touch and the feeling of his hands.

“Are you awake, my dear?” he whispers, trailing one manicured nail down the curve of Crowley’s spine. He leans down and presses a soft kiss to his shoulder, thinking of every time he had only dreamed of being allowed such an intimate gesture. He kisses again, just for good measure.

“No.”

Comes the tired reply from his chest, accompanied by a squirm as the fingernail reaches the two dimples in the small of Crowley’s back and becomes a rested palm.

“Ah. Well if you aren’t awake then it’s hardly proper of me to touch you like this.”

Aziraphale removes his hand and Crowley hisses in defeat, twisting awkwardly to grab the hand before it can go too far and resting it back where it was, fingers hot and splayed on the cold skin.

“S’pose ‘m a little awake,” Crowley murmurs into Aziraphale’s chest, nuzzling his nose to the soft, downy hair there.

“How are you feeling?”

Aziraphale always asks, afterwards. Especially on nights like the last, where there had been less tenderness and soft, reverent kisses; and more sharp thrusts and scraping nails and ‘ _yes, beg me for it’_ whispered hot into Crowley’s ear, until the demon was soaked with sweat and keening on the bedspread, looking wrecked and thoroughly debauched.

“Excellent,” Crowley assures him, used to their familiar pattern already. He slithers up higher, head moving from Aziraphale’s chest to his neck, lips dragging along the skin the entire way. Aziraphale can see the marks better now, the large red and purpling shape of his mouth on Crowley’s neck and shoulders and chest. He smirks, just a little.

“What shall we do today?” Aziraphale asks, drawing small circles on Crowley’s back before sliding his hand lower, grabbing a handful of ass just to hear the choked grunt of approval in his ear.

“Seems you’ve already got an idea,” Crowley replies with a tiny rock of his hips.

Aziraphale has an awful lot of ideas, really. The hand releases and smooths back up, up over the length of hip and waist and over the gentle rise of ribs. He cradles Crowley’s jaw as they kiss, slow but deep and purposeful. Aziraphale pulls away and marvels briefly at how good Crowley looks in the mornings, mussed hair and sleepy eyes, lax limbs and the light of the new day on his skin. Aziraphale might not sleep quite as much as Crowley, but he feels he appreciates it with the same level of enthusiasm. All the times they have slept near one another and he had never really taken the time to drink in the view. He will need to make up for that.

“Do you remember the first time we did this?” he asks as he presses a kiss into the hollow of Crowley’s throat, mouthing at the skin before biting gently at his collarbone. Crowley’s hands are circling the curls at the nape of his neck, wrapping them around his fingers before letting them loose.

“Oh, _vividly,_ ” he drawls, and Aziraphale chuckles.

He is pleased Crowley remembers the first time they had done _this_. Six thousand years was an awful long time to wait, so he would certainly hope Crowley had committed the night- well... day into the night- to memory. They’d had lovers before each other, of course. And neither of them were ashamed to admit it or to say they remembered the names and the faces and the touches and cries; but this was different. This time was no goodbyes, no flowers left on graves, no breaking hearts and letting people down because it could never work and they could never commit themselves fully.

“As much as I’m happy to hear it, that’s not quite what I was referring to. The first time we did this,” he gestures to the bed, to the much smaller than it used to be mattress that fits the two of them perfectly. Crowley thumbs at Aziraphale’s jaw and presses a lazy kiss to his forehead.

“The Flood,” he murmurs. “Followed you into that cave...”

“Then _tempted_ me into letting you stay,” Aziraphale finishes with a smile, turning his head to kiss the swell of Crowley’s thumb, “You fiend.”

Crowley smiles, all teeth and pride, “You _wanted it,_ angel. I know you did. You loved my company.”

“Oh I certainly did.” Aziraphale whispers, letting his kisses trail to Crowley’s wrist, where he leaves another soft bite, “I was fascinated by you, even then. Even more so when you simply curled up beside me and _slept,_ like I wouldn’t smite you right out of existence while your guard was down.”

Crowley _laughs._ The sound rings in Aziraphale’s ears and he wants to kiss Crowley but can’t bring himself to swallow the sound. Instead, he slides his hand into the still-long tangles of hair and pulls gently enough to expose Crowley’s throat and settles his lips there instead, where he can feel the tickle of laughter on his lips. Crowley’s laughter turns into a low hum and he raises his eyebrow, turning his gaze onto Aziraphale.

“You gave your sword to Adam so he and Eve and their child would have a fighting chance. Sheltered me under your wing when the Almighty brought the first of the rain even though I’d just created sin. You felt bad about the damned Flood, even I could see it. I saw you in the town days before I even spoke to you, handing out food and trying to be subtle in suggesting people make for the hills. You weren’t going to hurt me, angel. Not when I couldn’t defend myself.”

Aziraphale feels warm on the inside at the words, but then something clicks and he furrows his brows, tilting his head to look Crowley’s in the eyes.

“If you saw me doing all of that, why did you ask about the ‘travelling zoo’? I thought you’d only just gotten there when you came to find me? You said you didn’t know about the Ark...”

_Oi Shem!_

Crowley looks embarrassed for a brief flicker of a moment and Aziraphale smiles, wide and unable to help the lilt of a tease bleeding into his voice.

“Crowley? Did you _lie_ to me about how much you knew that day?”

“Ah- well- yeh- ngh... maybe? I didn’t know the Almighty was actually going to go through with it, I thought it was a bit of an empty threat and all that. Talked with Noah and his family, got a few details here and there. Then I saw _you_ wandering about and started thinking maybe there was a bit of truth to it?”

Crowley’s voice peters out and Aziraphale’s smile stays smug and proud and he laughs, “You _liked_ me.”

“Don’t be smug, it doesn’t suit you,” Crowley says with barely pink cheeks.

“You wanted an excuse to talk to me,” Aziraphale continues, unhindered, “Because you _liiiiked_ me.”

“Are you sure you’re over six thousand years old?” Crowley grouches with any venom, “Because you’re sounding an awful lot like a teenager.”

“You make me feel so very young, my dear,” Aziraphale teases.

He peppers kisses to Crowley’s cheeks and chin, pushing close through the barrier of the sheets and feeling Crowley against him. Crowley makes an approving noise in the deep on his chest and then they are kissing properly, mouths slanting together like they were made to fit perfectly.

There’s no more talking after that; unless you count the bitten of cries and the gasps of one anothers names. The encouragement. The begging. The incoherent noises from the both of them. Aziraphale's back stings from the new, fresh scratches on top of the older ones, but he wouldn’t dare dream of miracling them away. Crowley has worn his marks for weeks on end before, guiding Aziraphale's mouth again and again to the fading bruises or bites and coaxing them anew. Crowley's impossible hips fit so perfectly around his own, meeting each desperate thrust of hips with equal fervor and need. 

“ _Please please please_ _ **please**_ ”

Aziraphale isn’t even sure who is doing the asking at this point.

There’s quite the benefit in partaking in such a human activity when you’re not quite human. The morning becomes afternoon before they are done, sweaty and slick and spent on the sheets that are cleaned with a lazy snap of fingers. Crowley has even more marks now, patterned in the spread of his thighs where Aziraphale had spent his time teasing and teasing until Crowley had grabbed the back of his head and taken what he wanted, much to Aziraphale’s immense pleasure. Aziraphale loved all manner of teasing, particularly drawing Crowley closer and closer to the edge before wrenching it away at the last moment, as he was almost careening off into pleasure. Crowley says all kinds of wonderful, terrible things when Aziraphale does it, making empty threats and vicious growls of frustration. Today had been no different. Aziraphale curls are damp with sweat and he is tender all over, as though set alight by Crowley’s touch and left to smoulder. Crowley makes a soft noise beside him, staring lazily up at the ceiling and wetting his lips.

“You’re a right bastard.” he croaks with a wide smile.

“Don’t tempt me to be worse,” Aziraphale replies, “You’ve no idea how much more terrible I could be.”

The noise his words elicit from Crowley are filed away for later. Aziraphale very much wants to hear that sound again.

Crowley curls himself tight around Aziraphale without being asked, slinging one long leg up and over Aziraphale’s hips and snaking both arms around him. He has his chin propped easily on Aziraphale’s shoulder, the softness of his breath ghosting down the slope of his neck and along his chest.

“Time for a nap?” he murmurs hopefully. Aziraphale chuckles.

“A nap, my dear? We’ve barely been awake five hours.”

Crowley squeezes his limbs and purrs into Aziraphale’s ear, “What if I tempted you to it?”

Aziraphale is so warm, so wrung out from the feeling of Crowley around him and spread out beneath him, that he nods.

“Temptation accomplished,” he says, though grabs Crowley’s hand where it is wrapped around his own and brings it to his mouth, kissing each fingertip, “But I’m certainly not done with you for the day.”

Crowley smirks against Aziraphale’s chin, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They sleep, long and deep and wrapped in one another, nestled perfectly in the centre of the bed. The sides no longer matter, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I'm going to get mopey and soft here but I am so thankful for every person who has read, bookmarked, kudos-ed and commented on this fic. To think that this started as just a one shot and spiraled into almost 40k words blows my mind, and I never expected this kind of response. I'm so appreciative of you all and it really means so much to me to have created something people enjoy. It's the first large piece of work I've written and finished since I lost my dad not long ago, and writing it really helped fill a void in my chest. Good Omens opened up a whole new thing for me, something with a happy ending and a promise of good times, and better days, and love.  
> <3


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